To Balyn's eye, the building looked a little bit ramshackle. Then again, "ramshackle" was pretty much the entire architectural aesthetic to be found in the Forbidden Woods. Homes and shops were cobbled together out of mismatched planks, badly measured and ill-fitting, with a general impression that the whole village was steadily rotting away into the depths of the forest floor. The sagging walls didn't so much seem to stand on their own as they leaned against each other for balance, like a couple of staggering drunks propping each other up even in the process of slowly, inevitably slouching to the ground together.

That florid turn of thought made him pause and take an experimental sniff of the air. It didn't help; the general odor of decay covered up anything specific.

"And it's not like I'd recognize the smell of any hallucinogenic molds or something, anyway," he muttered. "I'm pretty sure that I never went to college."

He kind of wished that he had. If Byrgenwerth was anything to go by, institutions of higher learning must throw some really wild parties.

Regardless of whether his side trip into poetic descriptions proved to be chemically induced or merely a product of his own mind, Balyn had a job to do. He stepped up to the door and jangled the cracked iron bell hanging next to it on a hook. As if summoned from another world (though probably just walking out of the dark entryway), an old man in ragged shirt, vest, and trousers appeared before him.

"We don't open for another half-hour," he grunted at Balyn. "Go away and come back then."

"I'm not a customer."

"Then don't bother with the coming back part."

"She'd probably give me one of those looks if I did that. You know, one of those long, measuring ones, followed by a little sigh, then she finishes it off by shaking her head sadly, like she should have known better than to get her hopes up? I'd rather go a few rounds with a giant alien squid than get another one of those." He gave a little shudder.

The old man squinted up at him.

"You sure you're all right, there, sonny?"

"What? Oh, sorry. What I mean is, I was sent by the Yharnam Employment Agency. Something about a painting job?" He glanced at the building walls again. "Are you sure, though? I kind of like the moss-green theme you've got going on here."

"Huh? I don't need you to paint the walls; I need you to paint me a new sign. Beast ate up the last one, clear down to the ampersand. Guess that's what I get for using red paint."

"You could try a nice moonlight blue, instead," Balyn suggested. "Something just a little darker than Arcane Slug, but not so showy, since you want people to call back, not call beyond."

"…You're a weird one, but beggars can't be choosers and you come cheap. You'll find the brush, paint, and a plank for the new sign on the stump out around back." He jerked a thumb in the general direction.

"All right. Oh, wait, you never told me what you want it to say."

"Wasn't that in the job request?"

"Is that what the paper she was waving at me when I ran off was all about?"

"…I really should have offered more for this job."

"What?"

"Nothing. Anyway, the store's Gehrman & Sons, Farm Tools. The motto that goes under the name is 'From scythes to saws, if it cuts it's awhrs.'"

"Awhrs?"

"Yeah, awhrs. O-u-r-s."

"Did you make up that dialect just to make the rhyme work?"

"Never you mind, sonny. Don't think too hard about all of this. Just go out and paint me my sign. You know, it's just what artists do."

Balyn blinked, memory striking a chord.

"Wait a minute. Gehrman & Sons? You're telling me he was going around mooning over a girl and making a life-size doll of her, and all the while he had a family back home?"

"Huh?" The old man shook his head. "Nah, not so far as I know. But that guy's been unseen around these parts for a decade or two, so who's gonna complain?" He gave Balyn a broad wink. "And who's gonna buy a scythe from a guy named Mort, right?"