Bought the box of Topaz in the topaz store, had 0 topaz, opened up the box for my two freebies, had it say "you got two topaz! You're at 0 topaz". No topaz was gained, only the 20 lost.
Nobody disagrees that this game is teidous. My suggestion is to add seeds every venue that give stats from the last area, like when you get into the swamp, you can buy seeds that would give you running.