Next day they headed to get the bracelets appraised at the rift building, as that was the only appraiser they knew of.

  “Wana take bets? I bet you it's worthless, just some funny bracelets.” Jen said, munching on a pretzel as they walked from the bus stop to the rift building.

  “I hope not, we need the credits. With no rift for a week, we are going to need the cash.” Charles said.

  “If it's really good, we are keeping it. Maybe they let us shoot fire balls?”

  “Its a tier 1 rift drop, there's no way, tier one drops ALWAYS suck.”

  “I heard ascender Titan got his bond from a tier 1 rift.”

  “He is an ascender, the universe probably bends over backwards for him, dude married a princess who is also an ascender, he has luck flowing out of his ears.” Charles retorted before snatching the last bite of pretzel from Jen and popping it in his mouth.

  “Firstly, people make their own luck. Secondly stealing food means war, your death will be slow and painful.” Jen said with a mock sneer.

  Arriving at the rift building lobby they asked the staff on site about getting a appraisal for their item. With a nod the man behind the desk sent them to a side room, gestured for them to sit at a large counter and told them:

  “The appraiser for the tier 1 rift is off duty for obvious reasons, but Tom, our normal tier 3 guy, will have some time soon, as there is no rift slots today till 11. A.M. so he will be able to help you kids.”

  Taking a seat at the counter the duo waited only a few moments before another man, presumably Tom, Entered and sat down across from them.

  “So what have you kids brought me today? If its from the tier 1 rift its normally off the small drop table, so this must be something rare. Eh?”

  “Not sure about rare, just odd.” Jen replied, fishing the two interlinked bracelets from her pocket and sliding them across the counter to Tom.

  Picking them up and examining them Tom immediately started muttering, “Ohh, …. I see…. Yes, spatial folding….. What a odd enchantment…. That's odd…”

  He slid the bracelets back across the counter, and Charles picked them up and started examining them, and tried using his new skill he had dubbed [Tag], however the output was the same.

  –Item/Items–

  N/A

  “Its a split Growth item, quite rare, this one is of unprecedented value.” Tom stated in a matter of fact tone more like reading the label on a can of soup than describing a treasure of great value.

  “I'd value it at 3 tier 21 mana stones.”

  Jen fell out of her chair, Charles rocked back, clear disbelief on his face.

  Tom continued. “Growth spatial items are rare, tier one growth spatial items even more so, I have heard Dragons and rich beasts buy them for their young at quite the price, not having hands, the ability to store items at tier one is quite the boon, so its hard to get an accurate price.”

  “Its a storage item?” Jen asked from her spot on the floor.

  “Its two. If I am correct, and I've been an appraiser for 900 years, so while I am sure, I'm not infallible. However its two bracelets, that allow two people to access the same spatial storage space.” Tom said.

  “Can we even sell that and stay on the path?” Charles asked, the sheer wealth he held in his hand making him panic a little, as if someone would steal it at any moment.

  “No way we are selling!” Jen shouted, jumping up from her place on the floor. “I don't wanna wait till tier 15 for spatial rings, think how useful it would be! We could keep everything for travel in there and our weapons, the rift loot, no more dragging the tarp!”

  “Tier twenty one mana stones, we could buy…. Everything with that.” Charles said.

  “We couldn't buy tier one spatial rings.” Jen said with a pout. “I'll do the laundry for a week, just keep them!”

  Without a word, Charles slid one bracelet on his wrist, freeing the second he passed to Jen who slid it on with glee, swiftly binding it to her self.

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  “Storage will be soo nice, I can travel with so many outfits!” Jen said, lost in thought and clearly daydreaming about her ever growing pile of clothes in their room.

  “Well, its a shame you didn't want to sell, but I understand the excitement.” Tom said standing, his eyes flicked back and forth as he checked his [AI], “I got a commendation just for identifying that, that's going to look good on my record.”

  Tom then exited the room, leaving the giddy Jen and still shell shocked Charles to their devices.

  “We could have bought a castle….” Charles said.

  “Come on, this is better and you know it, who needs a musty old castle when we have this!” Jen said, taking her pad from the bag at her side and trying to store it in the bracelet, it vanished without a trace.

  “See if you can take it out!” she said, fixing him with an anticipatory stare.

  The pad appeared in his hand at a thought, it was an odd feeling, like having a space that you know every object inside and can pull from at any time.

  With a goofy grin Charles stuck his hand in his own backpack and started storing everything he touched. As it turned out, the volume limit was limited to about the size of a bathtub, small for a spatial item, but positively enormous by tier 1 to tier 3 standards, and it would only get bigger with tier.

  Closing in on two months later, Charles and Jen finished their last tier one delve, hitting the cap, and being ready to crunch for tier two. The replacement tier one rift had been a kobold rift with no metal salvage or gemstones, the drop table was considered much better as it had lots of valuable ingots, and no worthless poisons.

  “If I ever see another kobold it will be too soon.” Jen said as they exited the rift building.

  “Let's get our compressions done, then tomorrow we need to shop for some hammers for the golem rift.” Charles suggested as they boarded the bus.

  “I'm down, momma needs a nap.” Jen said as she flopped down on the bus.

  “I need a shower, the kobold rift is way too hot and humid.” Charles said, “Maybe we can try some of the delver parties tomorrow night, ya know, celebrate out tier up?”

  “No way, we need to focus, I think we need to push ourselves, having to swap tier one rifts really showed me that we were a one trick pony, we need to train for more rift types.” Jen said.

  “While I agree that we got bodied by those kobolds in our first attempt, we didn't do that bad.” Charles tried , his rebuttal clearly half hearted.

  “I'm going to schedule us for a trainer for team tactics, it will be more class than the normal combat tutors we go for, but I think it's worth the credits.” Jen said.

  “Lets buy gear first, then whatever credits we have left will go to training, I think we can cut down on the leisure day to fit more practice.” He replied.

  “Agreed.”

  —---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  “Honestly, the massive hammer suits you.” Jen said while kiting golems in a massive circle.

  *THWACK* *SMASH*

  Charles stood in the middle of the large open cave raining down blows on the waist high stone golems, each blow of the large metal maul cracked or shattered a golems head. The constructs were slow, as long as you could stay out of their reach you could kite them at a slow jog, the danger came if they managed to hit you, the small stone golems packed a punch, and many a delver had their knee shattered in this rift. Every now and then some team would lose someone who got dogpiled by the rock monsters, so Jen and Charles were extra careful to keep a good distance and only engage them in small groups.

  “Bring them over here, I'm ready for the next group!” Charles shouted. “The hammer is way too much fun, you should try it next run!”

  “No thanks, I don't have the physical allocation for that kind of combat, ‘I Am A Mage’. ” she said, emphasizing the words.

  “I'm a hammer mage!” Charles said jokingly as he continued dismantling the golems.

  “I'm still a little mad that [Solar Flare] is useless, I understand not every skill is for every rift, but this is my third rift ever, and I'm stuck with it for a whole tier. Boss golem time, ready?” Jen said, keeping up the running conversation as they casually cleared the rift.

  The first few clears had been rough, but as they got a few more clears under their belt the duo learned how to deal with the hardened enemies and developed a strategy. The hammer Charles bought first was a one handed Warhammer that he paired with a shield, by the second run they knew the shield was useless as trying to block just led to broken arms, so that pair was swapped out for a large two handed maul. Jen, who had tried using solar flare to distract the golems, had eventually learned that smacking them with her staff was a much better use of her time. Once a golem had been hit they ignored everything accept whoever had attacked them, only switching target when attacked. This let Charles follow the aptly named ‘Golem train’ with his hammer and smash them as they waddled after his partner.

  The Boss golem stood shoulder high and was significantly more dangerous than its lesser brethren, as it had a ranged attack, it threw rocks. The golem only used its ranged attack when none was in melee range, so the order of the day was getting in close and dodging.

  Charles closed the distance and started swinging at the golem’s arm joints, calling out, “Plan C!”

  Plan C was to have Jen move behind the golem and use their pickaxe for the killing blow.

  “I hate plan C!”

  “Then learn how to not aggro the boss!”

  *Thwack* *Clank* *Crumble*

  “Another clean kill. Wana get the reward distortion?” Charles said, panting a bit as he stored his hammer in their storage space.

  “Always! Come on, big money! Big money!” Jen chanted to her self as she dispelled the reward distortion.

  12 tier 2 mana stones came out, and she swiftly caught them.

  “Above average mana stones.” She called out as Charles worked on dismantling the golem.

  “Nice, Looks like the boss’ core is scrap, let's head out.”