Balyn liked to think of himself as a convivial person. Maybe not "charming," per se, in the sense of being a social butterfly, but a pleasant sort of fellow who could get along with most people and find common ground. In that respect, he found Yharnam to be a bit depressing. The people were standoffish and unwelcoming to an outsider like himself. Closed doors, peals of mocking laughter, growing fur and claws before trying to eat his spleen, it was nothing but one rude act after another.
Even here, in the ghastly nightmare of the Fishing Hamlet, was he greeted with convivial fellowship, maybe a few shared pots of ale in between swapping complaints about how awful Yharnam's Healing Church was? No! And while Balyn didn't hold it against a fellow if he had tumorous growths spotting his fishbelly-white skin, a lipless mouth full of needle-sharp teeth, and clawed, webbed hands, when that fellow was trying to ram a harpoon through Balyn's intestines, well, it just didn't seem neighborly.
"Positively standoffish, is what you are," he groused, knocking the harpoon shaft aside with his saw cleaver. Balyn slashed the fishman across the chest, and the twisted creature fell back, but from further up along the shore another fishman hurled a harpoon at him and he was forced to quickly leap back, into the shallow water of the village's central lagoon.
Ah, well, at least his boots were already soaked through; a little more water wouldn't hurt.
The wounded fishman was in no mood to back away from the fight just because he'd been hurt a bit. Gripping his harpoon in both hands, he again charged Balyn. The hunter gave ground, dodging a massive overhand stab, his foot clunking against an old jar as he backpedaled. Taking his chance from the missed stab—the fishman was obviously not a trained fighter—he dashed in and slashed, cutting his enemy down.
Keeping his attention on the creature he was fighting, though, with an eye out for the one chucking harpoons at him, left Balyn with no chance to notice a third fishman appearing at one of the upper windows of a rotting hovel. The only hint he had of the creature's presence was a spark of light in his peripheral vision as a thrown Molotov cocktail arced over his head.
Balyn did notice, though, when that Molotov landed among the clay jars of slug oil he was standing beside, and the volatile chemical detonated in an explosion powerful enough to slaughter anything within twenty feet.
On the plus side, if he'd lived through it, the heat from the fire would have dried out his boots nicely.
~X X X~
"Welcome home, good hunter."
The Plain Doll (which made no sense at all; she was actually rather pretty, and at least in Balyn's experience dolls that walked and talked were in no way ordinary, so neither definition of "plain" applied) was always consistent in her greeting.
"Do you ever get bored, saying that every time I come back to the Hunter's Dream?" Balyn asked, checking his hat for stray ashes. Whatever magic kept resurrecting did a good job cleaning his clothes each time, but it never hurt to check. The Messengers seemed nice enough, but he wasn't sure he could trust them to use the right amount of starch on his shirt collars.
"Pardon me?"
"Well, I do die a lot. I thought you might be getting tired of saying the same thing every time. I assume it's a job thing, right, like how a shopgirl greats a customer?"
The Doll gave him a look that eloquently suggested he was a babbling idiot. Balyn was always impressed how expressive her face was, given that it didn't actually move.
"Sorry; I didn't mean to be annoying." Satisfied that his hat was clean, he set it back in place. "I'm just a bit bothered by the lack of friendly spirit here in Yharnam. When the dolls are more sympathetic than the people, a town has got a problem. And what's worse, it's starting to affect me in combat!"
"Indeed?"
"Definitely! Take this last time, for instance. I was in the Hunter's Nightmare, and I got myself burned to death. I didn't even think to keep a look out for possible fire attacks in a hamlet full of such cold fish."