The Memory Peddler

Locals and travelers alike share tales about the Memory Peddler, a last resort of the burdened soul, known to soothe the scars of those with heavy hearts. Stories abound of haunted spirits finding peace after their visits, their worst memories dissolved into the desert air.
Deeper: As twilight settles over the dusty ochre sand, a caravan of weathered travelers unpacks, and quietly sets camp along the perimeter of an old caravanasi ruin. As fires light, and cooking post warm, the kindling of the small fire illuminating the ornate tent just beyond the common bounds stirs no concern; its presence is an expected part of this landscape. Cloaked in richly woven robes, the Memory Peddler's figure is a familiar sight, his face veiled, glowing orange eyes watching silently from the shadows.
Nearby, the Peddler’s mill hums, its ancient glyphs catching the last light. A censer emits a sharp, aromatic smoke, while the nights patrons recline on plush carpets, their eyes reflecting the flicker of his small fire. The Peddler, ever silent, plucks dulcet tones from his silver lyre, his music weaving a tapestry of forgetfulness for those gathered. As the night deepens and the millstone churns unseen burdens into glassy black sands flecked with gold, each visitor departs lighter, their darkest memories left in the grains beneath the starlit dome.
The Peddler never speaks; he only listens, watches, and plays - a collector of forgotten woes.
He is a rare, grown-up allip, allips being creatures that feed on the fear caused by bad dreams, generally considered a nuisance rather than a threat.
'Those allips took my favorite sword!'

a victim.

They wait in the shade of the campfire for 'took my favorite sword' to become 'it was all that kept back memories of my childhood'. This is a private thought the victim takes to bed.
Then the allips play their tiny musics on tiny silver lyres (sounds like crickets, or nature itself), and take the sad memories, leaving the swordless victim.
The adult allip requires greater potency of memory to survive, maintain form, a therapist who causes the problems he listens to.
As the Memory Peddler grew into a rare older allip, he came to know he causes loss to remain alive and grows angry at the cycle that life has stuck him with. He finds alternative sustenance in the memory of animals. Then starving himself nearly to death. When he walked himself back into his society from a starved silence, he he is cast out.
Other adult allips who cast him out respect that their life cycles revolve around creating misfortune, sorrow, and tragedy and harvesting its crop. They find him weak.
It is the mark of the the Memory Peddler's exchange that he is hired on one night, and it takes three nights for a memory to form, then he comes to remove it.
He believes that the three types of Bad—misfortune, tragedy, and sorrow—are natural products of a charged life, and so throughout those three days he's been hired, can be spotted from afar, watching from on top of his horse.
The mask he wears at that time is mirrored and he will not speak to anyone. Only watch and reflect.
He does not want it to rain, but he also wants to know when it will rain, all the time.
The Clinchin Fold want him enslaved or his power taken and learned.