DERO
Formerly "dero"
Tucked between the gentle hills and misty forests on the far edges of the land of Sweet lay Verdant Hollow, a quaint village sustained by the lush soil that surrounded it. It was the kind of place you’d only see on postcards - a bustling weekly market, no banks, no chain stores, Devonshire tea, the occasional doily and certainly no fancy city folk. A perfect little community, where the biggest scandal was the librarian’s suspiciously perfect scones winning every year’s baking competition.
And then, one spring morning, it was just there.
Where the sundial used to sit in the town square, now stood a colossal carrot, still rooted in the earth. Taller than a silo and larger than the Mayor’s ego (which was generally tolerated by the Hollowfolk with a sigh and an eye-roll), it hummed with a strange, warm vibration. It pulsed with an energy even the town’s resident “scientist” (i.e. the reigning pub trivia champion) couldn’t explain. No one had planted it and it seemed that no one could remove it.
At first, the village was intrigued. Then confused. Then divided. Some called it a miracle; others, a mutation. Rumours started swirling of its influence over the upcoming Sweet FA Admin election and a few villagers began claiming they could hear the carrot and spoke of dreams bathed in orange light promising order, and cosmic understanding. They united around a charismatic leader and called themselves Gralinistinians in his honour and declared the vegetable The Root of All. Farms converted to carrot-only crops and a shrine was built on the edge of town.
But not everyone was so enamoured. A secretive group of villagers (unsurprisingly led by the local baker, plus a few skeptical thatchers) believed the carrot was a threat to their peaceful way of life: unnatural, invasive, possibly even mind-controlling. They dubbed themselves the Millquetoasts to hide their steely-eyed determination to get rid of this carrot, once and for all. And perhaps with that action, claiming the Admin position for themselves.
It soon led to confrontations between the two groups, with the usually sedate monthly Town Hall meetings descending into farce. There was a push for everyone to join the cult’s belief and for Wosh Hollow to go fully gluten free. There was a push for the WHOLE OF SWEET to go fully gluten free. But when the Gralinistinians shrine was defiled with a dead sheep (Strigoi) in the night, things changed from strange to sinister.
The once-idyllic Verdant Hollow became the front lines of a different kind of war: spiritual, political and agricultural. Only one side could come out on top and it would have far-reaching consequences not just for the small village, but the entire community of Sweet.
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