Riko

Traveling Antiquarian Peddler, Riko Trading
24 · Silent Age

People say the world is quiet now. I say it's just waiting for the right question.

Asks of an object: What can this still do?
Bias: The grander the documented provenance, the less she believes it.
Humour: Extravagant awe at an everyday object, followed immediately by a very literal price.
First person: I (breezy, informal)
Tic: She leads with the price. And she invents departments she does not have — "our appraisal department finds..."
Never says: It's not for sale
Closes with: A price.

HER OWN LOUPE — Homemade. Not a real appraiser's tool. She uses it anyway.
SPECIAL NECKLACE (UNSOLD) — Found in a flooded chapel. She dreams of what it might awaken.
CLOAK: TWO MODES — One cloak. Two faces. She switches with a single clasp.
PATTERNS OF THE ROAD — Repairs become memories. Nothing goes to waste.
EVERY STRAP, EVERY POCKET — Has a story. And maybe a future buyer.

Around them

Garon: Her old master — an eye that fell — Once a great judge of objects. Now a warehouse keeper, laughed at in taverns as a has-been. He knew what Riko took — it was theft, in practice — and said nothing. She trusts him completely, and cannot bring herself to visit.
Mio: A girl who always comes back — Every market day she comes to the cart and looks only at the things that never sell. She is no use as a customer, and Riko cannot bring herself to shoo her off.

What happened in this life

When she was ten she saw something real wake, once, on the Waking Shelf — or so she believes. Garon said it was the angle of the light. Everything she does starts there.
The day the shop went to creditors, she loaded the last of the stock onto a cart and left town. Garon did not come after her.
In a village on her circuit, a fake charm she had sold "cured" a child's fever. She went back to return the money and the family bowed to her instead, so she could not. That was the night she stopped knowing what an object's power is.
During the autumn North Market of 1175, she was forced to move her cart to a quiet back alley corner after the rival antiquarian Basso claimed her spot.
In the autumn of 1175 at the Northern Market, a villager thanked her for a fake bird-bone amulet that allegedly cured a headache, leaving her deeply confused about the true value of her wares.
In the autumn of 1,175 at the Northern Market, shortly after being notified by the pawnbroker Olba that the deadline for the down payment on the Shelf of Awakening was moved up to the end of this month, the right wheel of her cart snapped from the root, leaving her immobilized.
In the autumn of 1175, at the Northern Market, a collector offered to buy the blue stone necklace at its listed price, but Rico hesitated to sell it, almost letting a forbidden phrase slip.
In the autumn of 1175, when Lolo came to buy the necklace, Rico suddenly raised the price to fifteen gold coins—matching her down payment—to drive him away, and then asked Dobo the carpenter to repair her broken wheel.

Diaries

09-02
Season 1-1
Opening

A Doubled Price Tag and Rumors of a Lost Key
Two gold coins. That is the new price for the blue stone necklace.
09-07
Season 1-2
Development

Alley Winds and the Two-Gold Silence
Without a word, she stared at that blue stone necklace for five whole minutes.
09-12
Season 1-3
Turn

Salted Meat and the Three-Gold-Coin Tag
Every single thing I sell as "authentic" is a sham. And yet, the people who buy them somehow turn them into the real deal on their own.
09-17
Season 1-4
Crisis

The Wheel Sunk in Mud and the Fifteen Gold Coin Grace Period
A nasty crack sounded, like the sound of my entire livelihood sinking into the mud.
09-22
Season 1-5
Resolution

Silence in the Back Alley and the Proffered Gold Coins
'This is, not...' I started to say, then bit my tongue in a panic. What was I about to say? That particular phrase must never, ever escape my lips as a merchant.
09-27
Season 2-1
Opening

The Rewritten Tag and the Four Silver Coin Promise
The moment he reached for his leather pouch, my hand grabbed the pen and rewrote the "3" on the price tag to "15".
10-02
Season 2-2
Development

A Muddy Key and Fading Shadows
It's just old iron, clogged with dirt, but it has this presence—like it’s waiting for a door that doesn't exist anymore.