Rikua Oxidubna

Rikua is one of Vuuga's students and a sorcerer in Siderati. She is 21 years old and of a toned muscular built and short black hair.

## Backstory

Rikua grew up in a poor family in the small town Asun's Fall at the contested border between Siderati and Sudra Major. During her youth there were frequent skirmishes in the region, and armed paramilitary organisations looking for favours of the Sudra Major nobility terrorized the region. From a young age, she experienced and saw the cruel deeds comitted by these roving bands. Her family and the entire village was often extorted for extrajudicial taxes levied by these groups, further impoverishing the area. Damage to buildings was frequent, leaving the town in a more and more dilapidated state, which made Rikua decide to train herself in sorcery by herself, with no one to guide her. With Carbon as her neutral element, she first developed Mycelium Pillar at age 10 to easily rebuild walls and shape terrain. Soon, after witnessing more cruelty of the bandits, she started honing her spell for more offensive means, creating Ascending Spinae, and a few years later started slowly applying it to her own muscles and skeleton, a process of perfection that is still incomplete.

Her servitor, Rooted Maw, started manifesting the moment she started working on her sorcery, but only materialized when she first felt an acute threat to her life. When she was 15, she and a group of friends were running errands out of town when they were accosted by those same bandits. They were extorted and they attempted to commit even more heinous deeds. In the battle that ensued, Rikua was struggling at first and got badly wounded, but when Rooted Maw manifested she left the whole band as a mangled corpses. She kept one of them alive and forced him to bring her to their base camp. There, she fought 20 armed men , including the leader, and won, though badly wounded. Returning to the village, she found it was pillaged and burned to the ground earlier that day, when she was out of town with her friends. For three days, she sat atop a pile of smoldering rubble with heavy wounds, until Finley spotted her while flying to an important destination. Instead of continuing on this important mission, Finley took the injured Rikua back to Lunasude, Vuuga's home. Rikua was treated back to health, and she remained there with no home to go back to.

## Personality and Relations

Rikua is a fairly closed off person to most people, and she may appear as cold and uncaring. She is most comfortable with Finley Mahdain, the woman who saved her and marked her new start in life. Rikua and Finley contrast each other sharply - while Rikua is closed off, Finley is emotional and open. That is only superficial however, as she does care deeply about all of her friends in the Green Mayfly. After Finley, Rikua is also close with Dagaric Tanco, and she often trains him in physical combat.

Her motivations to fight in Green Mayfly against Sudra Major's army is nothing noble, nor does she seek revenge for her tragic past. Instead, she just wants to hold onto her current life and loved ones with all her might, allowing nothing to come in between. While she often has second thoughts about fighting and wanting to take her friends away to somewhere safe, she knows too well they will not yield, so she has decided she will stand with them against the imperial power, no matter the risk.

She regularly clashes with Areus, the Monster of Euryon. Areus is loosely affiliated with the Green Mayfly, but she deeply despises his hatred-driven path of vengeance. Despite Areus' overwhelming might, Rikua has no qualms about reproaching him, even violently if it comes to that, unlike the other Green Mayfly members, who are too intimidated by him.

## Sorcery

Rikua is a powerful specialist sorcerer blending conjuration with divergence techniques for efficient spells that waste no power on excessive conjuration. Her natural frequency is carbon, and all her conjuration is based on carbon to maximize the efficiency. Her spells are highly focused on close range combat, as a natural extension of her great martial arts and physical strength.

### Mycelium Pillar

Mycelium Pillar was Rikua's first development in sorcery at age 10. This spell served as a prototype to her others and evolved specifically into Ascending Spinae. Mycelium Pillar works by extending a mesh-like network of carbon threads into whatever material Rikua touches. The carbon threads are under Rikua's control and have a tiny area around which they can make materials soft and pliable. Then the material the mesh is embedded in will follow the shape the mesh takes, allowing her to shape rocks into walls, crudely repair broken buildings, and other imprecise tasks. Mycelium Pillar used fairly thick carbon tubes, making it appear as if a black mold was growing on whatever object she was casting it on. The spell's range is about 15 m.

### Ascending Spinae

Ascending Spinae is the evolution of Mycelium Pillar. The carbon mesh is optimized and scaled down, making the spell invisible to the human eye while allowing for vastly more precise control, with a lower mass of conjured carbon. Ascending Spinae is often used as a close range offensive spell by Rikua by unexpectedly shaping the earth into a thin spike with enormous velocity. The spell's range is about 10 m if she concentrates on the specific direction.

### Demon Flesh

Demon Flesh is an extension that became possible when Ascending Spinae was created. Rikua started strengthening her body by infusing the microscopic carbon mesh in her muscles and skeleton. Due to the delicate, complicated nature of the human body it is a gradual process to complete this infusion, and its limit is not reached yet. Demon flesh enormously enhanced Rikua's strength by contracting and expanding the mesh along with the muscles. This also makes her unnaturally durable, as the enhanced carbon fibers provide support for the skeleton, joints, muscles and skin.

An extension of Demon Flesh is that it gives her conscious control over her body in ways that others simply can not reach. Rikua can use it to move around internal organs if they are ever in danger from being pierced, even blood vessels. This allows her to render the damage she does sustain despite her durability nearly useless. The carbon mesh of Demon Flesh can stitch together flesh, blood vessels, nerves and tendons on a microscopic level, allowing for quick regeneration. This regeneration is still limited , as it cannot repair burnt cells or lost blood.

### Rooted Maw

Rooted Maw is Rikua's servitor, a hideous sentient weapon formed from carbon fibers. Normally, it appears as an uprooted tree with several mouths filled with ragged teeth, and eyes all over, with a length of about 2.5 m. Rooted Maw is conscious, though quite specialized in its intelligence. It is perfectly in tune with Rikua, supplementing her fighting style with its own power as they fight.

Rooter Maw's embedded technique is that it can willingly change its mass on the fly, between the weight of a cat and the weight of a tarasque or anything in between. This mass changing follows along with Rikua's strikes, allowing her to start a swing with little effort and ending it with a devastating force. Changing mass is not Rooted Maw's only trick however. The bulbous head of the weapon has functional jaws and curled up roots that can grab and bite onto an opponent with bone-shattering force.