Withersfield was well described, as few things could truly grow upon the desolate fields of Fool's Run. The farming terraces of Withersfield appeared to import their soil from more fertile regions, or else treated them differently from the emean and ether corrupted grounds and grasses that covered the vast savannah. Taming the soil couldn't have been more difficult in Zemos's estimation, and the use of terraces to engender an isolated growing condition for their gourds, wheats, and textiles was a genius move in Zemos' opinion. Biologically speaking, multiple cultures was always a good thing, where the strength of soil or crops went. One crop ate a certain nutrient, leaving others undisturbed, to be consumed when the crops rotated. Zemos surmised that they had some situation set up here, in that vein. But he was not here to observe their farming practices, as well regarded among Yari as they were.
The competition that had gathered on the retting fields of Withersfield, snickered and guffawed at the emaciated figure approaching, wearing only a home-made roughspun, and clutching a cane to help himself walk. In truth, Zemos had outgrown the need for the cane. Having recovered from the harms done to him a few weeks ago, he felt he needed to make the point, by repurposing his cane from a walking aid, to a weapon.
As they guffawed, their voices faded into background, and he turned inward. He channeled the necromantic ether along the length of the cane, forming a handle around the crook of the bone, causing it to form a sort of saber-hilt. The shaft meanwhile narrowed and tapered, forming a crude edge along one side, and the false edge along the last few inches of the blade. Within a few moments, he had himself a bone saber, low quality no doubt, but it had the effect of shutting up those who took him for an easy mark in this physical competition. He tucked the saber away in his baggage, which was set aside near his station.
The necromancer cracked his knuckles as he approached the stands of straw. Word had gotten out to the Stone Burho. Through the grapevine among the tailors, word got to Zemos. By dint of his side-job of retting fibers for the production of linen and other textiles, he heard of the strange challenge that was being advertised in WIthersifield. As part of the Crop Festival, flax straw wold be collected in great masses, as it usually is in Withersfield. While the township usually focused on edibles, since the rise of the First Tree and its endless food supply, this had afforded Withersfield the opportunity to supplant some of their life-sustaining grocery needs with the more lucrative textiles.
So in a strange challenge, in order that the masses of straw collected and retted and cured be threshed and beaten, they decided to make a fun competition of beating the straw with weapons, bare hands, whips, whatever was on hand for each contestant. Zemos preferred always to use his bare hands when he processed straw, as it toughened the skin and strengthened his slapping prowess. His favorite technique in the martial art, the open-hand slap, had separated much straw from its hardened wooden shives.
So Zemos stood ready, among a few others gathered there. A runner had assembled, along with a wayward Darstrion who'd decied to come out this far for the festivities. Withersfield, although it was remote from Yaralon, was still considered a valued part of its community of loosely connected villages, and had important things to contribute to the mercenary economy. Gourds were a good source of water and hydration, afterall, and they still grew those by the ton.
He sized up the challengers. There was a sober, dressed in his washday clothes, and swinging a threshing flail like he knew how to use it. Zemos frowned, he might beat a lot of shives from the straw, but he'd be left with barely any useable fiber by Zemos' estimation. There were others of course, and men with stiff whips, batons, and other implements. It seemed that the necromancer would be the only one trusting to the precise work of his own bare hands.
Thus, the Darstrion called them to the center, where they would each of them in their turn beat a certain measure of flax straw. Zemos prepared himself, cracking his knuckles, even as he felt them flush with ether to strengthen the bones of his hands. They would not break in this trial. The ether that flowed through his hands would preserve the structural integrity of his bones, lending them a stability that belied any damage he did to the flesh ensconcing them.
The Darstrion held a ribboned blade in the aloft for a few moments, then drew it down, signalling that the necromancer's turn had come. Thus, Zemos came forward, his fists wheeling about as he slapped and slapped and slapped the gathered flax straw.
The emaciated necromancer took to the straw with all the vigor his spindly limbs were capable of exercising. Though he had rarely been the strongest of people in any given situation, he knew how to use his body, and knew that repetition was the key to exercising greater force with accuracy. He slapped, it was his best unarmed move, and the one he practiced the most by far. A slap could better convey diseased or poisoned material over a larger area, used in tandem with his rotting touch and the necromantic gifts to which he was a Master.
He sped up his attacks against the flax to be retted, beating the shives and chaff from the flaxen material that would grow soft in the wake of his slaps. As he proceeded, there were laughs from all around, but then he noted in the periphery of his vision those who were using flails and whips and other implements to tease out the shives from their flaxen material. They lost much more material than Zemos to these hardened implements, breaking good fiber that could've gone to use in the textiles.
He shifted his slaps from right to left, giving ample time for the active limbs to rest, and sometimes even throwing in a whipping kick with his legs.
Zemos didn't engage in any odd maneuvers, other than to follow the similar trajectory as he worked the flaxen material up and down, softening it up as the shives shed from it. Slowly the laughs died down from around him, as others came to watch his methods with interest. He switched up his technique just slighty, to target other groups of muscles in his arms, and make sure they also got a decent workout. By now the flaxen material was nearly soft as feather down, and Zemos' technique and methodology, though unorthodox and spreading a little bit of scuffed blood from his hands, was showing its promise to those Withersfield villagers.
They began to cheer him on, although the underlying tone was for those cheering a bug trying to escape the fast encroaching tide of a puddle, or else an underdog, chasing larger prey than was within their ability.
He finished by pushing himself against the flaxen mat, and finally testing it for the last of any remaining rough or shives in the fiber, which was then to be spun into fabric.
He found very little compared to his own yield. There were far more useable fibers left on the ground, cast down by the cutting potential of their tools than in Zemos' more precise method, which had left only rough and maybe a few useable fibers at his feet. The shives were sharp, though, and had cut into his hands with every whipping attack. He'd need to heal up once they finished up.
When the dust cleared, Zemos stretched his arms and legs, shaking the ache from them as he beheld the work of the other challengers. It appeared that they'd finished early, but in the end, Zemos had far more material left over than those using flails, whips, and sticks.
At the end of the competition, Zemos was declared a runner up, though not the winner as the duel was stated to go to the first to finish driving the rough material from the flax, not the one to produce the most materiel at the end.
Thus Zemos went back to Yaralon with his pride, and a bit more of his strength restored into the bargain, having assured himself that he was now more or less fully recovered from the ordeals he'd suffered in the sewers earlier. He channeled more ether into his hands, healing them of their hurts and cuts that had been left by the splinters and shives that had barbed the flaxen material he worked.
