“The first thing you should know,” Rilzian continued, “and ya probably already expect is, I’m a lot stronger than I look.”

That same feeling of overwhelming pressure came from him. The others reacted as badly as I had, only Bruzigan seemed to withstand it somewhat better. A moment later, it was gone. Although, comparing this time to the last, I got the impression that Rilzian himself still wasn’t half as dangerous as his blade poison.

“So, now that we’ve established that yes, I definitely could have just killed Lheticus and taken the item—and a lot more besides—I'd like to call attention to the fact that I didn’t. I may not especially have love for the way the Federation runs things, but I have a lot less for folks who would mess with the Sanctuaries for a petty power-grab.”

“We’re sorry that we’re still taking advantage of you, a little,” said the other human of Golden Blades, a woman who had the look of an Archer class, “but we need to ensure our financial security on climbing to Area 2.”

“Financial security is not of paramount concern in Area 2 as it is in the Federation,” said Ri’legh, in a quiet, growling tone.

“Oh, I’ve done my research,” said Rilzian, “and neither is the Area 2 Empire a place where money is of little or no importance. Besides, as I explained to my new friend Lheticus at the time, the item is worth 100 times what I’m having him pay for it.”

“Just what is the item, anyway? What did you find, Lheticus?” said Arvallei.

“Go ahead and show them,” said another of Rilzian’s teammates, certainly the most unusual looking member of the party of 10, being a tree-person, “we already have an agreement, no one in this room is going to just snatch it.”

I nodded, and drew the statuette out of spatial storage, placing it on the table.

“This...isn’t an ordinary item, even by the standards of hidden pieces,” said Bruzigan, “I suppose we’re lucky Lheticus didn’t walk into a full-on battle royale for it.”

“You have us to partially thank for that as well,” said another Golden Blade member, a humanoid with larger than normal eyes and a hairless, gray skinned face wearing a caster class’s robes, “we’ve already repeated the 5th Floor several times since the Sanctuaries fell, gathering multiple Silver grade copies for the purpose of evolving the entire team. There was a great deal more competition for it the first time we did so than in this outing. Of course, the fact that many teams otherwise covetous of this item are aware that they’re far weaker than you also played into it.”

“So, Lheticus, let’s go ahead and take care of the first payment,” said Rilzian, “and then take care of our orders. I’ll spill all the info on the totem’s use over dessert.”

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I shrugged, and drew out the G1 coin that I’d gotten from the 5th Floor rewards. Rilzian’s eyes lit up immediately. “You guys did even better than I expected. What did I tell ya, Lheticus? You’ll get another one in no time.”

“Wait, another one?” said Mewi.

“I set the price at two of those,” said Rilzian, looking like he was restraining himself from reaching across the table for it. I rolled my eyes and tossed it to him as he continued, “I could set it at 200 G1 and still find a buyer, but it gets complicated trying to fence an item this good the usual sorts of ways. I wanna make money, not trouble.”

“Oh, ok.” Then almost casually, he drew his own G1 coin and held it up to Rilzian. “Don’t look at me like that,” he said, glancing at me, “I know how much you hate being in debt, and it’s not like a better way to spend it is likely to come along anytime soon.”

“Looks like we’re all good then,” said Rilzian, nodding at Mewi who slid the coin across the table, “honestly I wasn’t daring to hope I’d get the money in the easiest form to carry between Areas.” He pocketed the second coin, and gave me an “I told you so” wink. “This has really got my appetite going. Let’s get our food ordered.”

The Celestial’s food wasn’t nearly as expensive as Dille’s, that much was obvious at a single glance at the menu—though the prices were still high-end. I ordered an exotic and spicy seafood dish after making sure it was one of the most expensive things on it.

Rilzian joined Bruzigan on the short list of people who ate even faster than me. Ri’legh, the next fastest, still had about a third of his portion to go, when Rilzian interrupted casual conversation—mostly my teammates and his amongst themselves, but there’d been the occasional talking point between the different parties.

“All right. Rule number one of the Blessed Totem is to keep it on your person at all times. And when I say all times, I mean all times. Once you do have it on your person for more than a few minutes, you’ll be prompted to activate it or not. Once you do, do not let it leave your side. Don’t put it into spatial storage. If you do any virtual training, take it with you into the pod. You can set it down long enough to wash yourself, you don’t have to keep it with you like a teddy bear when you’re sleeping, but it’s a bad idea to have someone else in the bed with you.

The point is, what you don’t want to happen is for the Blessed Totem to lose its target. If that happens, the special juju it’s putting out is forcibly returned to the totem. I made a mistake about six months into my first attempt at using the totem. Lost 6 entire months of progress and had to start all over.

Your model extracts the ‘evolution energy’ five times faster than the one I used before, true...but I still doubt ya wanna screw this up.

I had to admit, what he was saying was definitely helpful to know. “Let’s see, what else was there—oh yeah. You can take it into Floors with ya, though you’ll probably want to set up some special method or whatever to attach it to your body so you don’t drop it while fighting or something.”

“Take it into Floors...the totem counts Floor time as real time, correct?”

Rilzian grinned. “I take it you’re thinking what I’m thinking. The 7th Floor lasts for up to a full year, so you can clear it, wait just a month, then redo the 7th Floor and that’s the whole timer right there. Yeah, we’re planning on using the same trick ourselves, though we’ll have to go through it fourteen times to get full results. But what you’re thinking can work. It doesn’t respond to the time dilation of the Tower’s virtual space, though.

I think that should about cover it. So! Who’s up for dessert?”