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As it transpired, Aodhan was adopted as a little boy by the crew of a merchant slash pirate slash official warship as a wee boy after he was found drifting on the high sea alone in a wrecked boat.

The Blue Elves (both Surface and Subsurface Blues) of the ship accepted him for some reason – mostly such foundlings were either left to drift or sold as… not-slaves, the wording was strange – and he was raised in the proper Elven ways. It was a testimony of the… strange… Elven legal system, that because of this, he was legally considered an Elf, a Grey Elf, to be more precise, but at the same time was legally considered a non-Elf too.

After spending decades with trading, raiding and battling the Lizards on the high seas, Aodhan, now an old man, decided to retire. One of the Blues – the word Aodhan used was either “uncle”, “shipmate” or “adopted brother”, Prof wasn’t exactly sure, which was the correct interpretation – had contacts to a Blue trading house (or such) and the old Human got a job as the security detail or caretaker of this depot.

Only when Prof waved the old seaman goodbye did he realise something important: spending decades fighting meant that the old man was probably high Level. Asking some passing acquaintance for their Level was considered somewhat rude on Arkadia, and spending so much time with only his party made him forget, how Arkadia worked. Everyone got Levels here and there, being old meant most of the time a high Level, even if he did only mundane things.

Old Bela from Smallgrovewell came to his mind. How high Level would one be, if heavy fighting was involved? Level 20? 30? Mini told him that she was Level 25 or so when she underwent the ritual to become a Vampire, and she was still young – or younger than the old pirate… He needed to ask more questions.,,

The guest house they were dumped into wasn’t a high quality hotel, but at least if was clean… cleanish, and the food was almost good. After a long time on the road with a party where no one was a really good cook – everyone had [Cooking] below 70% - and only having access to the liberated dry goods and the occasional wild animal, Prof appreciated the fresh porridge-with-berries with a some meat they were served.

There were even spices, flavouring and taste included!

Leaving their dirty clothes for the cleaning service (curtesy of the Foxkin family on the other side of the alley – they were assured, the matron had a high enough Skill in [Housekeeping] and [Washing] not to ruin their stuff) they visited the bathhouse in their quarter.

Cleaning on the road was iffy at best, with only the occasional stream or pond, at least the girls were allowed into villages and towns, so they were able to be in presentable condition. Prof, on the other hand, looked, despite his best efforts, like a hobo when they entered the city.

Previously, he haven’t had the (mis)fortune to have a bath with Beastkin – in Willowflower there weren’t many Beastkin to begin with – but here in Deadbranch he got the full experience. Wet Beastkin looked like, well, wet cats, dogs and foxes. Prof couldn’t fathom, why they were so dead set on the Elven Way of bathing at least twice a day, when there was so much fur in the way.

Seeing a huge (huge for Catkin, anyway) tomcat leaving a pool, trying to dry himself up with a towel, just for the fur transforming into a puffed up mess of fluff broke something in him. And was obviously just enough for a red exclamation mark to appear in his peripheral view.

Congratulation!

For working hard and diligently you have amassed enough EXP to be granted a Level Up! You have received 14 HP and 110 Skill Points that you can distribute as you wish! Only the sky is the limit!

No new Perk this time. Bummer.

There was not much of a question, where he would put his Skill Point, he had already planned it out a long time ago. 18% went into [Observe], 15% each into [Valuation] and [Looting] and 26% each into [Evasion] and [Axes]. If everything went according to plan, he would be able to get his last two tagged Skills to 200% with his next Level Up, and after that he would be free to spread his Skills out.

There were still a lot just waiting to be raised! Maybe he found a trainer or some books to beef up his massive amount of Skill Points per Level – but for that, he needed more money. Since it was unlikely to find any trainers or books in the Valley of Torment, he needed to find them in Deadbranch, and for that, he needed to get more money in the city. Maybe there was a dungeon nearby? He got the answer to that from Aodhan the next morning.

“There is one a few hours out, to the South. It has two floors, but it’s a shitty one, a whole lot of trees, with not much in the way of loot. Still, there is some you can sell. Let’s see… for about… maybe… that many” He wrote a number in Elvish currency on the ground.

Prof consulted his notebook. If a Waterfall was that many and a Bear was so much, a Leave have the value of that many coppers… That would mean… A bit more than half a Gold? Why couldn’t Elves use the normal base-100 currency system?!

“Of course, that is before taxes. For a foreigner, that would be 20%. Ah, do you have a valid Dungeon Exploring Permit?”

Prof did not have one of those yet, but an hour later and spending five silvers he was the proud owner of a one-time permit for that specific dungeon, permit included to leave and re-enter the city.

As it turned out, Shinead had no time for a quick dive, while Foxy and Mini weren’t in the mood to do one. Prof could have dragged Sharpclaw with him, but she would have needed a permit on her own (strangely, she was NOT considered as a dangerous pet, when it came to issuing permits…) so he was left alone.

What could possibly go wrong?

At worst, he would pick up another party member, as he did after each of his dungeon runs so far.

Shinead had news about the attackers, they left only two weeks ago in a hurry, but she still needed to investigate some leads and wait for requested information.

In a rare case of agreement with Prof, she told Foxy and Mini to get their food and potion supply in order, and pay it with their own money. So far Prof was paying for most of the things, with a bit of contribution on the Clan’s part, and Prof was fed up with the leeches. He agreed to buy a few mules, but refused to pay for other necessities anymore.

The mules fell to him because neither Foxy nor Mini was good with equines (they were afraid of Foxy and Mini considered them only as food for Binky) and Shinead could not be bothered with buying them. With the division of responsibility established, Prof was on the way to finally have net gains on the monetary front. Probably.

But first, he needed that dungeon run.

For the rest of the day he got to know the city of Deadbranch and make some small purchases. The city was laid out in a roughly oval form, conforming to the plateau it was situated on, with a fortified mansion on the Northern side. It was too small and un-fortified that it did not warrant the name of castle, and the Elves did not like to build “normal” castles in the medieval European way as far as he could determine to begin with.

They were content with hilltop ring-fortresses, housing part or all of a village or – as Deadbranch – city walls. There were no dedicated quarters for commerce, crafting, nobles and such, and even the different Elven races were thrown together haphazardly. There was probably a system in place, but Prof still struggled to understand the convoluted, multi-tiered and chaotic Elven political system.

Probably a native could make sense of why a wealthy Green lived next door to a poor Fox-Brown family of manual workers and a Blue tanner, and across a Red guest house, while the plot in the back was taken up by a Cat-Brown convenience store. For him it looked like someone just assigned plots randomly and forbade the inhabitants to change it up.

He was finally able to locate an armour-smith that could do something with the Dire Bear skull he looted back when he first met Foxy. After discussing a few possible designs, Prof decided he did not have the time to wait a week, did not want go all-out tribal with his head protection and lug the skull around further (and pay almost half a gold for the work), so he ended up selling it for the equivalent of six silvers and bit of change. He was well aware that he was grossly underpaid, it was worth at least ten, possibly even twelve silvers, but this was probably the last place to sell it for a long time.

Probably the smith was aware of this fact too.

Thanks to Aodhan’s advice, he managed to secure a few buyers for the probable dungeon loot too and get information what he should expect. He was told, the dungeon worked exclusively with plants and plant-based monsters, the loot consisted mostly of parts of said plants: fruit, vegetable, spices, plant fiber and oil, bark and, surprisingly, a few wooden weapons and parts of weapons. Seeing his confusion, why wooden weapons were good, he was told that the ones the dungeon gave out were almost as durable as low-grade steel and could be much easier to enchant and work with.

It was not a very lucrative dungeon, all told, no currency was to loot, and most items were available outside without the need for heavy fighting. The city army, guard or militia – Prof was confused again, the Elves did not make a clear distinction between the three, at least he could not detect it – did a few training sessions there time and again, and so did the small local Red clan. Which may or may not be part of the city’s armed forces. Otherwise, the dungeon was mostly left alone, no one cared enough for a nebulous possibility that levelling in a dungeon was maybe faster.

Elves had time aplenty.

Stocking up with a few potions – a few antidotes included, it was said some of the plants were poisonous – he returned to their guest house to have a good night’s sleep before the dungeon run.

Before going to sleep, he was forced to attend an impromptu fashion show, hosted by Mini. She blew a lot of money on new clothes – one more impractical and gaudy than the next, a few really skimpy ones included. Prof was amased how it was possible to find such clothes in a medieval setting, a few of them would be even borderline back on Earth.

He already learned that Mini owned not one but two backpacks of holding, so the question where she put her unending selection of clothing was an easy one to answer. Having no need to eat conventional food was a big point on saving funds for one’s hobby.