The Yharnam Employment Agency was starting to feel almost like a second home to Balyn. The high, vaulted ceilings more suited to a house of worship than a business, the shop-boys scuttling to and fro (they definitely looked a little thin and spindly, so it was good that they could find work to get them some needed food even if in a better world children should be properly cared for by family), and of course the tall, pale woman in bonnet and shawl who manned the main desk.
"Welcome back, good sir," she greeted him upon his approach. "I am surprised to see you back so soon." Were her lips pinched more tightly together in a disapproving frown? It might have just been his imagination. He didn't think she changed expression a lot.
"Yeah, well, the whole barber shop job didn't work out too well. I mean, haircuts are one thing, but half the customers wanted a full-body shave and I think I need more training with a razor before I could be confident doing that. Or before the customer could feel confident, for that matter."
"I see. That is unfortunate, but probably for the best for all concerned. We shall try to find you a job better suited to your…talents." She didn't say "lack of" before the word "talents." She didn't have to.
Her long-fingered, delicate hands rapidly shuffled through the pile of job requests on her desk.
"They are looking for a carpenter for staircase reconstruction in the Healing Church Workshop. Are you good with heights?"
"Not so much. I used to be, but then it took me a half-dozen attempts to roll out of a broken elevator through a window on the side of a castle and the whole falling thing started to make me nervous."
She tipped her head to one side, looking at him with the same fundamental curiosity as one might regard a church pastor breaking out into a soft-shoe dance number in the middle of their sermon.
"…If you say so, sir."
She resumed looking through her papers. Balyn got the idea that if he wanted her to help him again he needed to redeem himself quickly.
"There! That one," he said, pointing at a listing that she was about to set aside. She turned back to it and skimmed down the page.
"This is a request from a tattoo parlor."
"Yeah! I could do that."
"Do you have any experience as a tattoo artist? It is not a job which can be done without training."
"Sure, I have experience! I've etched dozens of runic symbols for the unknowable words of the Great Ones into the inside of my own skull and never misspelled 'Metamorphosis' even once. It's got to be easier when I can actually see what I'm looking at."