I have only played for 3 days and I am both broke, and out of energy (potions?) for my lyko that I use for quests~ what do I do/ how do I get more?

Explore, sometimes you get lucky from guardian chests. Quest drops include the item. You can also buy it from premium shop. Otherwise you have to wait.

Everything comes from Explore and Quests. Questing gives a lot of cash.

Try to Explore as much as possible - your items add up. 

Level up your pets on Arena. Each win gives XP, and much more than in Explore fights.

Try to adopt a pet per day that can perform a quest. These pets more than pay for themselves. My silver comes mostly from questing. It's cheapest to go into breeding offers to find a pet that matches a quest (eg black bicolor gryphon) then click on his children and find a black bicolor child in the pound to adopt.

Other questing beasts you'll need are blue symurgh, white symurgh, striped black dragon, pure black puma, fiery red symurgh, tan forest throdama, fire nomad throdama, and I can't think of any others.

The more complex quests require more expensive beasts, but you can always breed them yourself, eg a lightning roc or a dragon with artisan or dragon with fearsome look.