Leaving his stuff behind, he drew his weapons – just out of precaution – and took a peek.

Instead of some young Locals having a good time he found a short woman, laying on her belly, half in the water. She wore obviously quality clothes – brown trousers and a green shirt – but they were torn and bloody, and the left boot was missing altogether. From under her shoulder-length fiery red hair a pointy ear peeked out – Prof didn’t need his high Intelligence to figure out he found an elf. As would everyone grown up in the Western Culture do.

It’s not that hard to spot pointy ears and draw a parallel to beautiful tree-huggers. What Prof couldn’t figure out, what Elves on Arkadia were like. Back in the village everyone he asked covered the issue up and changed the subject. The only titbit he remembered was that they usually kept to themselves on the other side of the “border”.

Prof put his weapons away and checked the woman for injuries – with a spinal injury the worst he could have done was moving the patient. Althought his [Medicine] Skill wasn’t too high with only 54% he could rule out a fracture of the spine (hopefully, he wasn’t a doctor, after all) but found a nasty head wound (probably with a concussion), a heavy fracture on the right shin (only the trousers kept it from becoming an open one) and a stab wound on the abdomen (with possible inner bleeding).

And a lot of bruises and small cuts. The woman obviously tried to bandage the stab wound, that is what kept her alive till now. Beneath the dirt and wounds the woman – or rather girl – was beautiful: sharp lines, delicate nose, big golden eyes, a colourful bird tattooed above her right brow, shapely boobs, flat belly and thin legs – but still toned enough not to confuse her for a doll. Prof could never tell the age of Humans in his life, and had exactly zero experience with Elves, so he tentatively put her around sixteen to eighteen.

He didn’t waste any more time, and gave a good dose of potion to the girl and, forming a quick decision, even splashed some on the wounds. The potion wasn’t good to begin with, but every little bit could count in an emergency, so he hoped, he at least sterilized the wound and stabilised the patient. Being done with first aid he looked around for some stick to make a splint – having not much in the way of bandages, he took off his shirt, rinsed it really quick and bandaged the head- and stab wound.

Making the splint wasn’t successful the first time – the bones poked through the skin, thanks to his expertise – so he splashed his last to potions on it and tried again. The result wasn’t pretty in any way, but was possibly better than leaving the fracture alone. Even with higher regeneration than back on Earth, he was sure, the girl wouldn’t survive without professional medical help – and the only healer Prof knew was Hajni, back in the village. Before setting out, he hid his loot under some bushes. He doubted anyone would come to the pond, but wasn’t prepared to leave his hard-fought loot lying around in the open. Who knew?

The problem was, in his reckoning he was at least ten to twelve kilometers from the village, so if he ran, it would take about one or one and a half hours, if he walked two to three, and if he tried to make a stretcher to drag the girl through the woods, at least for, but more likely five to six hours. Running back to the village to fetch Hajni and coming back was out for the obvious time it would take.

Since back on Earth injured people were transported with an ambulance and not on public transport, he figured speed was more important than the seemingly higher comfort of a DIY-stretcher. Fortunately the girl was light like a feather, so Prof could lift her without issue and could still run with a good speed – the problem was rather how he could carry her without one of the wounds getting worse or a body part not catching on some flora growing haphazardly and unregulated everywhere.

The distance to Hajni’s and Kendrik’s home took ultimately around two hours, he had to bypass too many bushes, hills, scrags and thick patches of woods. Despite his best effort, the stab wound started bleeding halfway to the healer, and when he arrived it looked really bad.

“Hajni! Emergency customer incoming!” He shouted from the gate. Hajni opened the door with eyes large as saucers and directed them to the bad.

“Prof, where did you find an Elf? Furthermore, a Red Elf?!? What did you do to her?!?”

“Me? Nothing! I found her not far from the dungeon half-dead! I gave her my last potions, but I’m not good at healing to do much more! And what is a Red Elf?”

“This could be a problem… Let me look at her! Prof, get out of my way! Come back in a few hours, than I can tell you if I can save her. And don’t forget, the bill will be yours to pay!”

Prof decided completely on his own that he could not help Hajni and would be in her way, so he left the building, refreshed himself a bit, got a new shirt and ran back to retrieve his loot. If he calculated correctly, he could be back before dusk, pay his taxes and check on the girl. He was curious how she ended up in such a state, and he fancied her a bit too. She was a bit too young for his taste – not that he was so much older with his brand new twenty-two years – but even at home it was legal to have a relationship with a sixteen-to-eighteen years old.

Arkadia probably didn’t had such legal limitations. Of course, since she was an Elf, she could have been easily a hundred. Was it gerontophilia if she looked like a teen or pedophilia if she was over hundred? OK, moving on.

Unburdened Prof was faster on the way to his stash and without the need to look out for the wounded Elf, the way back to the village also took less time – there and back he could manage in a bit over two hours. Before reporting to his landlady, he washed himself, and changed cloth – it didn’t befit to make a visit to the local tax office sweaty and dirty.

“My Lady, I checked the dungeon in the woods, and I have good news.”

“What good news? That you survived? Or that you found a Red and brought her back to my demesne?” The Lady obviously wasn’t thrilled to have to play host to an Elf.

“My Lady is right, the good news is that I survived the dungeon.” Somehow Prof managed the sentence without it being sarcastic “The Elf I couldn’t let bleed out into the lake not far from the village. What I really meant with good news is that the dungeon has more loot than anyone knew.”

“More valuables? Let’s see!” Lady Jotabor got over the issue with the Elf real fast. At least for now. Prof really started to get curious why everyone seemed to have a problem with a “Red” Elf, and how they could tell she was a “Red” to begin with. But, questions for later. First, Prof unloaded everything, down to the last iron bit onto the desk in two heaps.

“This heap contains everything I was told to look out for” He pointed to first to one than to the other heap. “And this I found hidden. There are a few items I couldn’t evaluate, but for the rest, I estimate around fifty silvers.” Prof pushed the two magic rings and the money box separate from the pile.

“Sag, get Torda, maybe he can do something with this lock” the Lady ordered his steward. “Fifty silvers is about right, the most valuable piece is that sheath for about twenty. The two rings we will not be able the identify here, and there a lot of cautionary tales about not messing around with unknown magical items, so I won’t give them to one of my serf. I will count them as five silvers a piece.”

Prof would have said as much himself, so he nodded to the Lady.

“My Lady, I have a proposition. My Lady is entitled to six silvers for the part we can put a value to, and the sheath we both value at twenty silvers. My Lady would have a larger use of it than me, so my proposition would be to sell it to My Lady for thirteen pieces and my obligation would be met.”

“Including the box?”

“Yes, My Lady, no matter what is in it.”

“You have a deal, adventurer!”

Prof handed the sheath over and started to put the rest of the loot back into his bags. His eyes wandered over to the pile of rusty armour and weapons – it would be good to get rid of them too.

“My Lady, would you be interested in procuring the iron too?”

“That you should discuss with Sag. Ah, and here is Torda!”

Prof turned to the door, where, behind the steward a scarred man in his fifties stood, Prof knew him only in passing, having never met him personally. He knew from some passing comments made by the villagers that he moved to Smallgrovewell a few years back, and was a loner. Some said, he was an adventurer previously, other took him for a thief from a city, and other thought he was a juggler. Why he moved to the village was contested as well: retirement, escape or tragic love.

“Torda, this adventurer found a money box in the dungeon. Can you open it?”

The adventurer-thief-juggler took measure of Prof, nodded approvingly and examined the box. First, he turned it this way and that, than he started to poke the lock with small tools – that looked like absolutely non-legal lockpicks. After ten minutes of poking he put the box back onto the table.

“Beautiful work! Dungeons often provide interesting loot, here you got an old Bergian box outfitted with Imperial decorations and a complicated Dwarven lock. Theoretically you could open the lock without its key, but that would destroy it most probably, and most of the box’s value is the lock itself. I think it would be better to destroy the box and not mess with the lock.”

The lock-master looked expectantly at the Lady and Prof. Prof shrugged.

“I’m not attached to the box, but am interested what is in it.”

“The adventurer already paid his dues, he can do with the box as he likes.”

Torda fished some other tools out of his coat – those looked suspiciously like absolutely non-legal safe-drills – and after further ten minutes he had the bottom part of the box in his hands. The Lady and Prof took a peek into the box – where three golden rings with gemstones sat. A quick evaluation later Prof found out two cost around five silvers a piece, and the third was magical with an unknown value.

“That was interesting, Master Hegyesi!” Lady Jotabor clapped him on the back and left the room. Prof was taken back a bit: this was the friendliest the Lady ever was to him (and she never called him “Master Hegyesi” either). Maybe the correct tax return had something to do with it?

“Master Hegyesi?” Obviously Torda still wanted to talk to him “I like working with locks, and this one is an interesting piece. I would like to buy the box and the lock for two silvers, if it would be possible.”

Without any thought, Prof shook on the business – it was a useless box which he planned to sell for scrap. With a happy lock-enthusiast gone, he sold the scrap metal, together with the cheap jewellery to Sag, but kept everything made out of gold and silver to himself – those seemed like a convenient way to store his wealth.

Counting everything, he made forty silver and some pocket change in cash with less than a day’s work! Plus the magical items and the jewellery he kept! He felt like a CEO on Earth only with doing more work. He promised to tell Sag and a few others where he found what the next day and set out to visit the patient.