Caloria Cricket

"Caloria"

- trying to make her insects feel better about Rance

About
Caloria Cricket is one of the last known remaining insect users, a small tribe of humans with strange abilities granted to them by the insects that live inside their bodies. When she was a small child, her tribe in Zeth was virtually wiped out in an ethnic purge by some of Zeth's first class citizens by order of King Gandhi's predecessor, who resented them for having powers that had nothing to do with magic. Because of this, she lived in isolation for seven years in the ruins of her village until meeting Rance's party. Though she initially avoided them at first, as she was understandably afraid of strangers, Rance's lack of prejudice towards her and the understanding of the rest of Ice Flame eventually convinced her to join Rance and his group.

As an insect user, she has four different insects living inside her body, the minimum required to be considered an adult according to her tribe's tradition, each with their own appearance, personality, abilities and even appetites. Though her most recent addition, FlameBoy, initially was in disagreement with Grandfather, they now mostly live along in harmony.

Personality and Appearance
Caloria has the appearance of a fairly young girl with slightly darker skin, green hair with two strands that twirl up like antennas, a single grey robe outfit and tattoos forming different symbols on her body. However, her insects can also surge up when she needs them (or when they feel like it). While they can emerge from any part of her body, they have designated spots to come out from, with Swallowtail springing from her forehead and the others appearing near her arms and back.

She's a young girl with a bright, pure and gentle personality, but due to living in isolation for most of her life, she has a childish disposition and fairly little knowledge of societal norms. She always wear the same clothing and dislikes changing it to a more traditional one as she prefers to keep her tattoos visible. She's very proud of being an Insect User and loves her Insects dearly, thinking of them as her companions and friends, but is often worried that her status as a member of a hated ethnic group will bring trouble to those around her, to the point that she almost decided to quit before Rance convinced her otherwise. Because of her position, she doesn't trust others with ease, but upon finding herself comfortable when relating with others she proves to be an innocent and quite gullible person, quickly believing anything those close to her tell her even if it's absurd, as she has lived a secluded life and lacks knowledge of many things. She's sometimes faced discrimination for her status even by some of her allies. She usually tries to hide it and prefers to avoid even mentioning to others, but it greatly upsets and saddens her. Because of the strong persecution and discrimination she's seen on Insect Users for most of her life, she's surprised that some of the members of Ice Flame treat her nicely to the point of finding it almost incomprehensible.

As an Insect User, she has four insects living inside her body bound by a contract, with whom she's established a close and positive relationship since their birth, as they all have their own personalities and are capable of speaking in the human tongue. Swallowtail is probably the most talkative and cheerful, usually doting on Caloria, Grandfather acting more protective and old-fashioned, Poisonfly usually acting uninvolved but with a slight aggressive streak, and Fire Boy being the youngest and most rambunctious. Fire Boy and Grandfather were initially in bad terms but they sided together after Rance took her virginity due to their common dislike for him, claiming that they will never let him marry her. Rance is annoyed by her Insects, as they often get in his way or just straight up threaten him, and Caloria has tried to improve their relationship with poor results. Due to the fact that her insects quite literally live inside her body, an Insect Users's hunger is exponentially increased proportionally to the amount of insects inside their body. As such, Caloria needs to eat for five and spends most of the time hungry due to it. Her insects also have their own preferences when it comes to their meals, and while Caloria isn't forced to satisfy their tastes, she puts all her effort to eat what they like in order to content them. Fire Boy likes any kind of burnt food, Swallowtail likes Cabbage, Grandfather likes Bread and Poisonfly anything abundant in carbs. Caloria herself loves sweets and candies, with her favourite food being Cream Puffs prepared by Sill.

She has a strong friendship with Rocky Bank, who is around her age and has had a similarly rough life prior to meeting Rance. The two seem to spend the most time with each other out of all of the members of Ice Flame, and continued to work closely following the collapse of Zeth by helping Kimchi run her orphanage. However, she is closest to Rance and Sill, who she treats as a surrogate big brother and sister, despite the former regularly sleeping with her, and when most of Ice Flame left Rance to help with the rescue effort, she was the only member to stick with the two of them instead. She loves Rance very much, not in a romantic way but in the same way one could love an elder brother. Caloria sees all her friends and close members of Ice Flame as a family.

Abilities
As the last living member of her tribe, Caloria possesses a nowadays very rare and unique skill set granted to her by her status as an Insect User, and displays a Lv1 skill on the job that allows her to achieve great expertise. Thanks to this skill, Caloria is able to harbor four Insects on her body, each of them granting her their own different abilities and allowing her to carry a very varied and versatile range of abilities:


 * Swallowtail: she grants Caloria with amazing sensing abilities, being able to act much like a radar from great distances. She's able to detect valuable treasures, small objects, organic lifeforms and many other things with little to no use of stamina and even on the heat of the battle, making her extremely useful for adventuring, scouting or even large-scale battles. She can even analyze substances to determine its composition, as well as working as an incredibly accurate thermometer.
 * Grandfather: he serves as a protecting shield that keeps her safe from harm. He's extremely durable and can cover almost her entire body, granting her high defensive potential and allowing her to even serve as a bodyguard to her allies.
 * Poisonfly: an offensive insect, he serves as a deadly weapon capable of shooting countless needles on a quick succession like a machine gun, dealing considerable damage to the enemy. It's also capable of shooting poisoning needles which, while inflict less damage than the regular needles, contain a powerful poison with a high chance of temporarily paralyzing the movements of the enemies. Less effective against heavily armored enemies, but lethal to mages or other fragile enemies.
 * Fireboy: an offensive insect, he acts much like a powerful flamethrower capable of burning her foes to a crisp. It covers an extended range and it is Caloria's main magical attack, allowing her to melt through her toughest enemies.

All her Insects also grant her naturally high regenerative properties, allowing her to recover from damage much faster than other combatants. Additionally, Caloria has a very strong resistance to all kinds of poison, being effectively immune to any kind of toxin and even the most lethal venoms can only bring her a slight itch. She's also capable of producing antidotes for poisons with the help of poisonfly. As seen by all this, her insects give her a very diverse fighting style that can adapt to many different situations. However, she does have her weaknesses. For instance, Caloria can only employ one Insect at a time and, while she's perfectly capable of swapping between them mid-battle, she can't combine their abilities to multiply their effectiveness. They also consume a lot of energy and stamina, preventing Caloria from engaging in extended battles without growing exhausted. Caloria also noted that she doesn't have a perfect control of her insects, hence why they can come out whenever they feel like, and that she still has a lot to improve. They also take a lot of effort to maintain outside of combat due to the food expenses and time required to keep them all fed. Her insects are tied to Caloria's Levels and increase in power accordingly, making her far less effective without keeping a proper training.

Trivia

 * She and Galtia are the only Insect Users left alive in The Continent.
 * In Toushin Toshi 3 however insect users Azami Cricket and Madaraga Cricket made appearance, but the game is set in an alternative universe separated from the one in the Rance Series, making Caloria and Galtia effectively the last ones on their universe.
 * In the Rance VI:Popularity Poll, Caloria ranked as high as 9th among all the characters.