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===Kadean Kuriosities===
Coined as such by non-natives unable to pronounce the Kadean name, '''''Kadean Kuriosities,''''' or '''''Kurios,''''' is a "secondhand antique" shop that sells anything and everything one may imagine. Lavish furniture, rundown amenities, appliances, scrolls and texts, instruments and knickknacks, heirloom vases, jeweled eggs and claw-cuffs and headpieces, bowls and basins and beds, cosmetics and art pieces and sculptures, cryo units and blaster carbines -- it and more are all stacked to the polished wooden rafters. One can navigate a tower of books and take a turn around a corner to find a kettle cozied up to piles and piles of priceless gems and silks. Climbing over a palequin and ducking through an array of rice-paper fans may reveal a golden statue with offerings of chamber pots and vibroblades and children's toys.
If one can even find their way to a wall, they would find a price marker scribbled in charcoal on the very windows themselves, stained glass and lined in precious metals. It is sometimes joked the only way to make it back to the front counter — less a counter so much as a long, elegantly carved bar, now defunct, its beverage shelves full of more "rarities" — is to follow the smoke signals generated by the owner's always-lit pipe.
Originally a land owner's city home in the Sapphire District of [[Shihon|Shihon]], the glazed granite building is very outsized for its current use, the front three rooms — a private entertaining lounge with bar and theater floor, a welcome hall, and a guest dining area — all full to bursting with product. The back half of the home is staked claim by the shopkeeper and his assistant, and jealously guarded by way of locked doors and impassable clutter, the only navigation into the living areas some secret between the two.
The owner of the Kuriosities, '''Nihimasa''', is a spindly, hunched Kadean with gray and silver scales and gray eyes, once standing much taller, though now his feathers fall limp and his scales grow pliable with oncoming age after a long-lived life...at least for a Kadean. He is ruthless, shrewd, and generally only seems to care for himself and his profit, haunted by whatever he saw during [https://discourse.darkjedibrotherhood.com/t/sins-of-the-past-plot-updates/1272/35 the Plague]. Nihimasa, like many surviving Kaedeans, took great joy in seizing what were once Sardinian properties and assets first upon exploring the abandoned capital city and its surrounding city states, a final posthumous victory in their [[Eldar#History|generations-long blood feud]] for superiority. He tends to mark up his prices greatly when dealing with off-world traders, not only due to his distrust of them but due to the opportunity for much greater wealth than the natives hold, glaring at them from under his wide-brimmed paddy-hat.
The only creature seemingly in Nihimasa's good graces any longer is '''Kunoe''', a younger female Kadean with a tan hide striped in brown and black scales. Her eyes are silvery, pupils ringed in brown, and a crest of short purple feathers runs from her forehead to the base of her spine and down to her elbows. Small, compact, and slightly scarred, whip-quick Kunoe is frequently seen skittering between narrow walkways in the store made out of jumbled items, worming under and around and over shelves and messes to restock, catalogue, or otherwise fetch from or add items to the collection. Kunoe is very suspicious of offworlders, a trait that she and her employer and landlord share, and is very principled and jealous. She watches every customer from the stacks like a predator, hissing under her breath if they get to close or if any of them menace Nihimasa.
It's said that his shop is of "curiosities" is all just belongings pillaged from Ancestors-know how many homes, stolen right off the sicked corpses of the dead and looted from other stores and families, but Nihimasa denies such accusations stringently, blowing smoke in the face of all complainers. He refuses to bargain, rarely barters for anything but credit, and has been known to charge even heftier sums if someone wandering in just so happened to break down crying over what they claim MUST be their Plague-lost mother's family necklace, just for the trouble of...reuniting them with the item when they are oh-so-emotional. In the few instances customers grew violent over their claim of an item, Kunoe has always been quick with a blow dart or a flash of talons, hissing and spitting with a violent loyalty to the graverobbing collector no one can comprehend.