Horatio Hawthorne had been the mayor of Sherry Town for the last two decades. He had taken office as a young lad in his 20th year of life and never left. The process of taking the mayoral office was quite straightforward too. When Horatio’s father who had been the village chief died, the responsibility to lead the village came upon Horatio and his two brothers.

The Hawthorne family were the area's largest landowners, which had automatically qualified them to lead the village. A village elder succinctly put it, “They have more land than all of us. So whatever problems we have, they will have more of it. That makes them the chiefs.”

There was no need for any grand schemes or political maneuvering either since Horatio was the only person in the entire village who knew how to read and write. This by default qualified Horatio as the smartest person in the village and its chief. It also helped that nobody wanted the job. Being a village chief was a thankless job that paid nothing but reputation.

Horatio was well-traveled. Well, he had traveled further than anyone in his village ever had. He had been to two large cities, following around a merchant caravan until it returned to Sherry.

Horatio was also very smart and ambitious, qualities very rare among the many generations of Sherry residents. The most ambition anyone in Sherry had last shown was a guy three decades ago, who took the advice of a merchant to plant fruit trees. He knew nothing about orchards so all the trees died.

That’s where Sherry’s famous phrase ‘always prepare for drought and ambition’ comes from.

But Horatio willingly took the role of the village chief which nobody in the village had wanted. He had big plans in his mind for his new role.

The day Horatio took office, he declared himself the mayor and Sherry Village became Sherry Town. His mayoral appointment contract had clauses that gave him anywhere from 5 to 10% of all kinds of taxes levied in Sherry Town. It was done with the full acceptance of the villagers.

From the villagers’ perspective, any percentage of 0 was going to be 0. Although, very few in the village even understood the concept of percentages. There were no taxes on agriculture and things like trade never happened in Sherry. The fancy new contracts and declarations did little to affect the lives of the villagers. Or so they thought.

At the time Sherry Village was just one of the three places with a road leading to Dingie Hills and beyond. But most people preferred to travel on the road passing through Reedston Town over the other two roads due to the shorter travel distance. It was an obvious choice.

To change the situation, after taking the mayor’s office, Horatio went to the nearest bandit lair and met the leader of the bandits, Thorp Strongfist.

“Are you here to join our bandit gang? You have the muscles of a farmer, we could make use of you. You’re quite tall too so just stand at the back to make up for the numbers for now.” Thorp thought of Horatio as one of the new recruits. They got bandit recruits when the harvest failed in nearby villages.

Horatio shook his head, “No, I came to propose a deal to you. I have a great idea, if you listen to me, both you and I can make a lot of money.”

Thorp looked at Horatio closely, “Hmm… You look like a farmer but you speak like those slick merchants. Are you perhaps trying to make me sell some dodgy powder? I should make others join the scheme for a commission right? It is one of those schemes named after one of those shapes. Triangle or something.”

After a pause to think about all the names of the shapes he knew, Thorp continued with some anger in his voice, “I got into banditry because of the debts from that. So empty your pockets and run along before I beat you up. I may have been dropped as a child but I don’t make the same mistakes twice.”

There was a lot to unpack from Thorp’s short monologue but the priority right now was to calm Thorp down before his raised fist landed on his face. Horatio hurriedly shook his hand, “No, no. You misunderstand Mr. Thorp. I am here for a genuine business deal as the mayor of Sherry Town.”

“Sherry became a town? When was that? It’s a piss poor village that we don’t even bother to loot.” Thorp looked at Horatio with cautious eyes. The young Horatio seemed even more like a scammer.

“We just declared it a town but I need your help to make us rich. If you follow along with my plan, you will get 5% of all the profits made by Sherry Town.” Horatio explained.

Although cautious, Thorp couldn’t immediately say no to a village that wanted to pay him regularly. So he motioned to Horatio to continue the explanation, “Go on, what is your plan?”

A long discussion ensued between the two and Horatio came out of the bandit den with a satisfied smile. He had to make some additional preparations and everything would be settled.

From the next day, Horatio began doing strange things that were beyond the villagers’ comprehension. In just a month after declaring himself the mayor, Horatio had a fairly large inn, a stable, and a carriage maintenance shop built in Sherry.

Even while the villagers and his family dissuaded him, Horatio remained steadfast and even took loans from merchants to hire blacksmiths and carpenters temporarily.

After a month, the villagers who had been laughing at Horatio’s foolishness were dumbfounded. More and more people had begun to pass through Sherry every day. The smarter villagers were already following Horatio in setting up restaurants and shops. The dumber ones were selling lands to the smart merchants who came to Sherry attracted by the smell of money.

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News quickly spread that some bandits had taken over the road to Reedston and were regularly destroying the road or blocking it with trees and large boulders. So a lot of that traffic that passed through Reedston was being diverted to Sherry.

As more people continued to move through Sherry, the town continued to become richer. Horatio was forward-thinking and continued to improve the infrastructure of the town. Within just a few years, Sherry was catching up to Reedston and even beginning to surpass it.

As Sherry grew, so did the mayor’s wealth. And as the mayor’s wealth continued to grow, so did his gambling tendencies. Horatio was a person who enjoyed the thrill of high-stakes gambles. That is how he had made his wealth.

But when his high-stakes gambles moved from being business decisions in the mayor's office to the gambling table, the ruin began. Last year, Mayor Horatio gambled away the contract for the last 1% of the profit from Sherry to a vampire viscount over a game of dice.

Although Lady Luck avoided Horatio like a plague whenever he gambled, she was very generous to him otherwise. And one of the expeditions he had sent out to find some ruins in the Dingie Hills paid off. He found quite a few valuable artifacts in an ancient ruin.

To Horatio, who was neck-deep in debt, this was his last chance at redemption. If nothing changes, soon he will be ousted from the mayoral position and he will lose everything he had built up over the past two decades.

“I built this town up from the ground with my bare hands so that money can flow in from outside. Why are kids these days learning weird things from outsiders instead of quietly earning money and paying taxes? What was it called again? Erection, was it? The name itself is vulgar.” Horatio grumbled.

Mr. Pipsmith, who had been Horatio’s assistant for the past eight years, looked troubled as he answered, “It is election, sir. With an L.”

Pipsmith was fully aware that correcting your superior never bade well for you, especially when they were in a bad mood. But his education from the ‘Institute for Right and Proper Secretaries’ kicked in automatically in these instances. One of the foundational principles of the institute was ‘always speak truth to power’.

He sometimes regretted ever getting admission to the institute even if it was the cheapest option available. More than half of its alumni had either been killed or fired within a few years of employment. Those who survived had either found an incredibly kind superior or were smart enough to rise to the position of the superior.

In Pipsmith’s case, he was lucky that he was exceptionally good at his work and that Horatio just didn’t have the stomach for cruelty. Horatio just glared at his secretary, “Election, erection, it is all the same. None of it is going to happen in this office. Not on my watch!”

It took a combined effort of all the cells in Pipsmith’s body working in unison to not point out the faux pas in the mayor’s words. He patted himself mentally. “Even if there is an election, the polls show that you have a very high chance of winning, sir. After everything you have done for the town, your reputation in the town is higher than anyone else.”

“Poles? How can poles know anything? Is it some weird magical invention from the wizards again? Nothing good comes from messing with the things made by the wizards. You remember the speaking mirror debacle don’t you? It almost caused a war between three nations.” Horatio frowned.

Pipsmith swallowed the sigh that had almost escaped his lips, “No, sir. Polls are like surveys where you ask people who they would choose for the position of mayor.”

Horatio angrily slapped the table, “See? It is all so complicated. What’s the point of asking the people about it? The old method was much simpler and effective, we owned the most land so we were always the chief. All these new ideas are rotting our youth’s brain I tell you. We need to make a law where they have to work more or something, if they don’t have the time to think they’ll be quiet.”

“Sir, you are not the largest landow-“ Pipsmith could not finish the sentence. Horatio’s murderous glare paralyzed his facial muscles. He slowly avoided the scary eyes by looking down at his old, faded shoes that were still good enough despite a full decade of use.

“We are working on it, aren’t we? After this auction, I will get all my real estate properties back.” Horatio looked out of the window behind his chair. The window provided him with a clear view of the main square of Sherry. It was bustling with people.

“How did this election business come to our town anyway? Aren’t the kingdoms around us doing anything about it? I don’t imagine the concept of the people choosing their rulers would sit well with them.” Horatio asked curiously.

“I heard that the dwarven Kingdom of Fireforge threw all the leaders who spoke of elections and democracy into their Motherforge as sacrifices. The Emerald Domain is radically religious about their tree goddess ruling over them through the priestesses so the idea never stuck there.

In Frostfall, anyone who even mentioned the words election or democracy turned up dead the next day so rumors have begun to spread that democracy is actually a curse made by the dark wizards. Since we are not part of any kingdoms and we are some distance away from large cities, it seems like the forces behind it are trying to make our town a base to spread the ideas of democracy and elections.”

Pipsmith reported on all the information he had collected in the past few days. He was quite scared when doing the research. These ideas were left unchecked in Sherry for just a few days and they were already spreading faster than a plague. He understood the quick actions taken by the neighboring kingdoms in rooting them out.

Horatio sighed. “It is much worse than I had imagined. Are you sure there is some force behind it? Couldn’t it really be a curse made by the dark wizards? Those guys are known for causing chaos.”

Pipsmith had a worried and conflicted look on his face. With some determination, he looked around the room cautiously bent closer to Horatio’s ear, and whispered, “I think this is the work of a cult, sir. I haven’t confirmed it yet but I strongly suspect that a cult is behind all this.”

Horatio jerked forward at the mention of a cult. His face turned pale with fear. You could chase out dark wizards by calling over proper wizards to fight them and undo their spells. But cults were a different thing. They were dark, secret, and mysterious. And more often than not, you could never remove a cult completely. Not unless they are crazy enough of a cult to remove themselves as a collective.

Having a cult in your town was bad for business. People tend to avoid towns that are prone to evil god minions randomly popping out of summoning circles. You might get more heroes and adventurers coming to your town but those guys were known more for taking away treasures and valuables than revitalizing an economy.

“We have to hire a hero or a wizard to chase out those damn cultists from our town as soon as possible. I’m not giving up on my position because of those bastards.” Horatio’s voice sounded very urgent.