Thousand Tongue Mage

The ceremonial hall erupted in gasps as Zora strode down the aisle with his staff in hand, and two sharp, ragged words were born on the tongues of countless whisperers:

Thousand Tongue.

Zora didn't need his eyes to know how quickly the world turned against him. One moment, the hundred bolt-action rifles and twelve sawtooth greatswords were pointed at Enki at the front of the hall, and in the next, they were all turned on him. The charged hush of fear rippled through the rest of the students standing around him, so he lifted his chin and cleared his throat, letting his voice roll out calmly and steadily.

"Chairs, go flying."

At once, every chair in the hall heaved into the air with a violent shriek of wood and iron. Hundreds of benches and stools rose as though seized by invisible hands, hurling students into disarray. Screams cracked through the hall. The rifle-wielding guards swore, unable to draw a clean line of fire through the storm of splintering furniture, and while chaos reigned, the students bolted for the doors behind him.

Of course, he didn't stop those who wanted to flee from fleeing. Their running bodies made for good cover from the hundred guards, who couldn't shoot without risking hitting a Noble-Blood, so the only people who dared to come straight at him were the twelve Spore Knights.

Their armor plates grinded, and their sawtooth blades dragged deep groans of steel against the floor as they charged him.

Zora tilted his head at the distant stage.

"... Do you know the tale of 'The Earthen Princess', Professor Vantari?"

He tapped his staff against the ground.

"Once, in a valley clasped by the black shoulders of the mountains, there lay a village beneath a curse," he said. "Each seventh day without fail, the heavens would grow leaden and low, and the rain would descend in relentless sheets, lashing the fields until the river rose like a serpent roused from its lair. The waters came roaring. It swallowed hearth and harvest, ground timber to splinters, and drowned the grain ere it could bow its head. When at last the flood withdrew, it left naught but muck, rot, and the stench of decay. No prayer unto saint nor god would stay its hand. No offering could temper its wrath. Misery came upon the appointed hour, and the people dwelt ever between drownings."

The words rolled from his tongue, travelled through the floor, and the underground pipes groaned. Pressure splitted iron. A chorus of ruptures cracked open. In an instant, a dozen water pipes exploded from the ground in glittering columns, spraying the hall and dousing everybody in cool and refreshing droplets.

Unsurprisingly, the Spore Knights didn't falter. The guards and students may be slipping as they ran past him, but the twelve of them continued charging forward.

"Among them was a maid-child, born with strange markings upon her skin: pale scars curling as though carved by the very hand of the earth," he continued. "The folk whispered she was ill-starred. 'The Child of Ill Omens', they called her. Children mocked her with cruel games, and the elders shook their heads when she passed. Each time the deluge came, they murmured it was her doing—that the clouds bent low for her sake—yet she never bent beneath their words. She bore no malice toward them. She fetched water for those who shunned her, mended tools for those who would not meet her eyes, and tended the sick when the floods left fevers in their wake. Though the words they cast upon her were sharp, she received them as one receives cold rain: enduring without anger, for she was gentle of heart and her nature was to do good, even to those who would not do the same for her. She bore herself like stone in a tempest, unshaken whilst all about her sank into mud and mire."

If water wouldn't slow the knights, then something else might. His voice rippled across the puddles in the hall, swirling dirt and soil together. The floor softened, splitting into wet hollows, and then mud surged up, swallowing legs mid-stride. Of the twelve knights, nine of them staggered as they became trapped knee-deep in sucking mire.

The remaining three broke free, leaping at him with their greatswords raised.

"Upon a day when the sky blackened sooner than it ought and the air grew heavy with iron and storm, the river was already in tumult when the child went forth to its bank," he said, thumping his staff again. "She waited not for her kin to flee, but set her knees to the sodden ground and her hands to the soil. She began low, scooping handfuls of clay-rich mud and pressing them firm, building a shallow rise along the edge of the village. She packed the base with stones from the riverbed to give it weight. She layered turf and sod to bind the shape. She bound the wall together like a wicker basket, and she filled every gap with earth until no water might slip through. The rain soaked her hair to ropes, the muck swallowed her shins, yet still she toiled, and the wall climbed higher with every breath she drew."

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His voice thundered, staff sweeping upward. The ground split and surged. An earthen wall of hardened soil rose before him, blocking their blades in a shower of sparks.

Then he swung his staff sideways.

"From behind their shuttered doors, the villagers beheld her. 'It will not stand,' they muttered. 'A wall of dirt cannot gainsay the flood,' they whispered," he said. "Yet when the waters struck, the wall yielded not. The torrent crashed upon it with the weight of mountains, hissed and frothed, questing for some breach, but found none. The village lay dry, and when the river at last returned meekly to its bed, the earthen wall yet stood, and the child beside it—breath slow, gaze steady. Then she told the wall to move aside so she could speak to the astonished folk."

The wall shuddered, tilted—and with a deafening crack—shoved sidewards like a titan's arm. The three knights were flung against the walls of the hall, shattering stone and wood alike and crashing through with such force the building itself groaned.

As Zora pressed forward, the rumble beneath his feet swelled. The rest of the Spore Knights managed to break free from the mud and thundered in from all sides, their sawtooth blades rasping like a dozen grindstones at once.

"Her voice was ike rain upon rock: 'The flood shall come again, but flee it not. Stand as the earth stands, unyielding and unbroken, thus alone is the tide undone.' And from that day forth she was called no more the Child of Ill Omens, but the Earthwall Princess," he said, thumping his staff a few more times. "Nor did she tarry in her home, but went from valley to valley, raising walls against rivers and storms, teaching all who would hear to set their own hands to the earth."

The floor answered with a dozen more slabs of earth. Each of them was tall as the ceiling was high, blocking blades and bullets alike, so with violent flicks of his staff, he commanded them to lurch sideways. The knights were certainly tough, but when walls as thick as they were flew at them, they couldn't possibly defend. Soil crashed against metal as the walls slammed the knights against the walls, pinning them there like bugs in a frame.

Behind him, he heard the hiss of two sawtooth blades wrenched free from fallen hands, and then the sharp clangs of metal striking metal as Kita swept through the straggler guards he couldn't pin to the sides with his earthen walls. A handful of guards cried out before collapsing, their rifles disarmed and clattering uselessly to the floor. She didn't kill any of them, of course, but she made sure to knock out anyone trying to shoot him from behind.

He had half a mind to yell at her to lead Eria out of the building as well—to evacuate the little girl alongside the other students—but Eria was sticking to Kita's back like glue, asking the heiress what was going on worriedly, so… he supposed it was probably better for her to stick close to Kita.

After all, he also wanted Kita and Eria to hear his conversation with Vantari.

As the three of them reached the stairs in front of the stage together—Zora in front, Kita shielding Eria close behind—he tossed Enki the diamond rifle. The Worm Mage caught it without looking, because he was still staring blankly down at Vantari, who was clutching the bloody stump of his right arm as he shuffled against the back of the stage.

"... So in time, the floods lost their teeth not for want of rain, but for want of fear, for the people had learned the oldest truth: they did not need to wait for the divine to save them. They could save themselves," Zora finished, stopping in front of Vantari with a final thump of his staff. "You have read it before, haven't you?"

Vantari's hiss lashed out. "What are you two doing? Do you know what you've just—"

"Your plan is flawed," Zora said plainly. "Sure, if you manage to complete your research and become able to produce Grafting Bug Afflicted without risk of failure, they'd be weapons of terrifying advantage. Perhaps, as you say, they may even be sharp enough to kill the Divine Attendant herself… but, to begin with, do you truly believe Decima doesn't know you're planning to double-cross her? That she cannot see you preparing to turn on her with the research she is sponsoring herself?"

Vantari gritted, his eyes wild. "Of course she does not! We built safeguards—countless safeguards to our lab! She has no access to our records, no communication with my assistants, and no way to—"

His voice suddenly broke. His body lurched forward as if seized by unseen hooks. A strangled convulsion wrenched through him, and he clutched his neck with his remaining hand, choking as something forced its way up his throat.

Neither Zora, Enki, nor Kita flinched. Though Kita may not know what the man was talking about, she'd seen this sight before in her own way.

Vantari's jaw snapped open against his will, and from the darkness of his mouth, a small, black and amber-striped cicada crawled out onto his tongue. Its wings buzzed faintly, but its voice—her voice—was a reverberating, echoing voice as ever.

"Tsk, tsk," the little cicada said. "We meet again, little Zora."