The next morning Prof made his way to Kendrik’s house first thing in the morning. The ranger was – in contrast to his usual schedule – still at home and was talking to his wife.

“Morning, friends!” Prof greeted them “How is our patient?”

“The wounds are healing well, she is sleeping right now.” Hajni led them into the house and placed a mug with tea into Prof’s hand. He recognised it from the smell, it was made of some herbs that sped up healing – he still needed it after yesterday’s dungeon run. He just took a sip, when they heard a yell.

“Hol vagyok?”

“Biztonságban” replied Kendrik. Prof didn’t know he spoke Elven. Elfish, Elvish. Whatever. “Az az ember megtalált az erdőben, és megmentett.”

“Egy büdös ember?!? Egy ember hozzám ért?!? Disznó!”

“Az az ember megmentett!”

“Hihetetlen! Egy szőrös majom!”

Prof only understood a few words from the whole dialogue, however he was sure, the girl haven’t ordered a beer. Judging from her angry expression, she wasn’t happy to be rescued by Prof and brought to the village – however, she was quite cute as she yelled with Kendrik while being half naked. The blanket slipped down to her waist, leaving her shapely breast uncovered.

Prof had a suspicion, Elves had different views on being naked that Humans back on Earth (and in Central Europe in particular) – in any case, Prof fell in love immediately. Or got horny, sometimes it was hard to distinguish the two.

“Excuse me, Miss” He greeted her with a bow. “I don’t know if you understand me, but I found you on a riverbank half-dead, according to Hajni you had only a few hours to live.”

“I understand you, majom! Do you expect a reward?” The girl spoke Bergian with a cute accent – not much different than Kendrik did, but heavier – the rhythm was more melodic, she articulated a few sounds much softer, other she used as diphthongs.

“No, Miss. It was natural to save you. My name is Prof, by the way.”

“You majmok never do anything for free!”

“It is not polite to call your saviour a majom.” Kendrik interjected “And you own him a vértartozás. As far as I know, you Reds insist on keeping the traditions.”

“What does a korcs know about traditions?” she spat. “However you are right that no one can accuse the Clans of the Vértündék not to respect the traditions.”

With that, the girl jumped out of bed – not caring that she was completely naked – bowed deeply, held her arms outstretched to the sides with the fingers in a complicated pattern.

“I, Shinead Sidhe of the blood of Fiona the Fast, a scout for the Gyors Nyílvessző Clan acknowledge that I own Prof the Human a Vértartozás. As long as the debt is not considered settled by both parties, Prof the Human is my commander.”

“Witnessed.” Kendrik and Hajni said in unison. Prof only understood that he forced the Elven girl into some kind of debt – and as much as he heard about Red Elves, he had to be extremely careful what he did with that kind of power. He could very much awake to the fact that he is standing in line in the afterlife.

“All right. Miss Sidhe, right? I don’t want to make this debt awkward. Please sit down. Can I call you Shinead?”

The Elf sat down on the bed and at least covered herself up below the waist – Prof didn’t know if he regretted that, but he already needed all his willpower to look into Shinead’s eyes. As in looking into her eyes, and not looking at her eyes. He was a guy after all, it was genetically coded into him to look at eyes.

“What can you tell us? How did you get wounded?”

“I don’t remember much” Shinead dropped her head “I was making a delivery for the Clan, and I remember I’m fighting on a clearing with someone, than I just remember pictures about wandering the forest. My gear! Where is my gear?”

“You only had your cloth on, nothing else when I found you. Hajni, what is left of the clothes?”

“The shirt was already torn up, and I had to cut the trousers to treat the fracture. Only the one boot remained, that’s there next to the bed. There was nothing else.”

“I will get you some clothing, but the quality will not be exceptional” Prof promised

“Clothing is not of interest, but I had important documents in my pack! I have to get them back, or I will never be allowed back to the Clan!”

“Right, I can help you, but Hajni said you have to rest for another day. I will try to get you some clothes and gear. Rest, and tomorrow morning we will get on the way.”

The elf wasn’t thrilled about the delay, but still lay down grumbling, she turned to the wall and pulled the blanket over her head. Prof signed to Kendrik and Hajni to follow him outside. He had one day to gather enough gear for an adventure of unknown length, and needed some things from his friends too.

“Hajni, I don’t know how long the search will last, and I don’t want to set out without enough medicine. What can you get ready till tomorrow? I will need health potions, and a few antidotes, but what else could you recommend?”

“I can give you one 40HP, two 20HP and four 10HP potions right now, and till morning probably two other 20HP ones, plus some other things. I can give you two antidotes too, some disinfecting salves, boosts for healing some tea and a little bit of bandages. For you, I will charge only eleven Silvers. For another two I can make a potion that raises your evasion, damage and resilience for a few minutes.”

“All right, I take everything” Prof was very interested in the potion mentioned last. He heard about such potions previously, but according to Hajni, they were hard to come by and mostly expensive. At least out in the countryside. Prof was lucky his friend was able to make at least one.

“Prof, I have an old training bow, it’s not as good as my regular hunting bow, but you will not find anything better here on such a short notice. I could sell it, my old quiver and a dozen arrows for one silver.”

Prof nodded. He hoped, the Elf was good with a bow – after all, she was an Elf and since Tolkien everyone knew Elves were good with bows, Dwarves with axes and Hobbits with stabbing you in the back. Prof planned to give her his old knife, he didn’t use it and the hunting knife from the dungeon was way better. He also needed some clothes, including two shirts for himself, a backpack and a few basic necessities. And food.

“Kendrik” Prof turned back from the gate “What does majom mean? She called me that a few times, if I’m not mistaken.”

“That’s the derogatory term the Reds – and to a lesser degree, other Elves – call Humans. I don’t think there is a word for that in our language, or at least I don’t know it. It’s some animal that lives in trees, is hairy and throws its shit around. The Elves say, Humans are a sub-species of them or evolved from them and still throw shit around. It’s utter nonsense, we didn’t evolve out of anything.”

Prof had an idea, what that particular animal could be, back on Earth some people were called exactly that by certain other people. Apparently racism and speciesm wasn’t unique to Earth-Humans, but it was shocking to be on the receiving end. Prof first visited the village’s tailor an bought two undyed linen shirts a pair of heavy-duty pants, a simple leather belt and a pair of turn-shoes for the girl (there was no sexy underwear on sale) and two peasant shirts for himself.

Including a blanket and a messenger bag the shopping cost him sixty-five coppers, and the quality wasn’t even good. From here and there he got a wooden plate, wooden cutlery, a canteen, a litre of forest-fruit booze (for his alcoholism) and rations for two people for a week. When Horka, the cook heard, he would leave the village he gave him half a kilo of cookies and a piece of cheese – he told Prof that although neither gave any bonuses, but they were of a better quality and was enough for two days for two people.

The rations he put into his sack, and returned to the ranger’s house with the gear for the girl. The couple already prepared his purchase – after some thought Prof put half of the medicine away for himself, the rest he brought over to the Elf.

“Shinead, unfortunately there was not much I could buy here, so you have to be content with these. If there were better ones, I would have bought it for you.”

The Elven girl watched the gear with apparent disgust – the disgust was understandable, the whole pile was probably worth less that her boots.

“As you wish.” Being thirty to forty centimeters shorter and lying in bed she managed to look down on Prof “I suppose, if I go naked, you will get ideas. I warn you, if you touch me in any way, I will kill you. Slowly. I won’t care about the Vértartozás. Érted?”

“No problem. I don’t plan to go around and touch girls. Have a good rest! See you tomorrow morning!”

The Elf grumbled something that could be interpreted as acceptance – or she called Prof a hairy animal again – turned back to the wall and went to sleep.