Hi! Thanks for the review! Tried to reply yesterday but itch was acting up.
Regarding the prop room, it's likely the problem is the way I set it up is communicated extremely poorly, which I've realized a little late- right now, any items you trade are automatically equipped / unequipped as gear. That's on me- I put no clear message to let the player know what has happened nor to explain what each item does, and it's understandable that a player might not check their gear to see something has auto-equipped. It's pretty badly explained in hindsight and I'll have to fix it. That said, if you aren't receiving the props even as equipment, then that's a bug that I'll need to investigate separately as that did not occur during playtests at all.
Outside that, thank you for the kind words and well-thought criticisms! I'm really glad the story is working for people, and I'll keep in mind how battles affect pacing if I get around to the larger project I hope to make from this.