You've recently escaped the island, found some interesting combat skills, but you haven't found a way to make cash. Here's a brief overview of some things that you can do.

1) Join a guild -- a larger one is best. Any of the guilds with recruiting threads on the forums will do. You can change guilds later if it isn't a good fit. As guilds complete guild quests you'll get a share of guild credits. These credits can be exchanged directly for cash. If you're not part of a larger guild then you're missing out on free cash.

2) Save your strange dirt and femurs. Femurs can be turned into bone meal, and strange dirt and bone meal can be turned into fertilizer. Gardening is the easiest way to make money early on, but you won't get beyond potatoes and onions without fertilizer. Cotton and Barley are low/mid-level farming items that can line your pockets with councils. Skeletons drop tons of strange dirt, and skeletons are easy to find.

3) Get a butchering knife and an autopsy kit. Get in the habit of using these two skills on any animal that you kill. Pig? Autopsy/butcher. Wolf? Autopsy/butcher. Deer? Autopsy/butcher. Organs (hearts, spleens, brain bug lobes, cat eyes) are an easy 5k/stack. Stomachs are an easy 1k/each, yes -- each. The "Under the Hand" dungeon is great for this once you're ready to move past Serbule animals outdoors.

4) Mantises in the goblin dungeon drop a fair amount of scrolls and books, many of these can be worth 500-2000 each. Sell them to Hulon in Serbule, his favor is easy to raise with some seedlings bought from Therese. Occasionally you might find a poetry book, these are valuable, and will often fetch 10k+ to other players. Don't vendor them.

5) Get in the habit of checking the player work-order board on a regular basis. It'll give you a sense of what's most in demand, and sometimes you'll have what someone else wants.

6) There's also an NPC work-order system that's closely tied to the crafting system. If you're interested at all in crafting, then get started with this early. Each town has a work-order board. Serbule's is near Fitz the Boatman at the docks.

7) Fire Spiders in Eltibule will be tough at first, but they often drop several fire dust. It's a popular item to sell to players, useful if you want to pick up fire magic, and they're worth 100c each if you'd rather just vendor them.

8) Ice Fishing in Kur. You shouldn't try this before 20ish, but it can be highly profitable once you get your fishing up.

9) Surveying is learned in Serbule Hills. It's cheap, and it's made many players rich. If you don't mind the monotonous grind, then it can be a major cash cow.

Good luck!