"So, you're the new hunter."

"That's right," Balyn said.

The old man's gaze raked him up and down, before its owner snorted loudly and hawked a gob of phlegm too close to Balyn's boots for comfort. The hunter didn't have the benefit of arcane cleaning services restoring his clothing to pristine condition every time the Messengers carried him somewhere any more. In the waking world, he had to polish his own boots.

"Don't look all that prepossessing if you ask me."

"I won't do that, then."

"What?"

"Ask you. My self-esteem's low enough already, and if I need it lowered any more I can always talk to the clerk back at the employment agency."

The old man squinted at Balyn, as if trying to bring something into focus. There were things that the human brain had trouble correlating, after all, that simply couldn't be properly perceived without a mind insightfully attuned to greater planes of perception.

Balyn wondered why everybody seemed to treat his remarks like they were the utterings of some kind of giant eldritch spider.

"Hunh, whatever," the client muttered, apparently giving up the struggle. "You're here now, and it's not like I've got a line of volunteers for the job."

"If you don't mind me asking, what exactly is the job? All they told me at the agency was that the Hemwick boatmen needed a hunter."

"As we do. Now, young'un, what do you see there?"

He pointed down the path towards the lakeshore.

"Um…boats," Balyn hazarded. "Am I supposed to see something else?"

"And what's in those boats?"

"Oars. There's some piled stuff that looks like nets, maybe? A couple of them have what look like draglines fixed to the back."

"Stern."

"Huh? I thought I was being friendly enough. I'm sorry; I didn't mean to sound cross."

"No, the back of a boat is…oh, never mind. Anyway, yer right. Those are fishing boats. We're expanding here in Hemwick, y'see. What with Yharnam's sharp drop in population after the Red Moon, the mortuary business has kind of fallen off."

Balyn reflected that that sort of thing could happen when a third of a city's inhabitants turned into beasts and ate another third. Especially since a really thorough scourge beast didn't even leave much for the crematoriums in Hemwick Charnel Lane to process. You could hardly charge full-body prices to dispose of a leg, not in today's economy.

"I get it. So, what's the problem, then? You're not going after those giant shark-men, are you? I'm pretty sure those started out as people, and I can't really be party to serving long whale, even if you're planning on catering to the Old Yharnam market where they're not so picky about those things."

The old man looked at him like he'd grown a second head. Or maybe a third, since it wasn't the first time he'd offered Balyn that expression.

"What are you talking about?"

"Sorry, I had a bad dream about a fishing village, once. Or more like thirty-seven or so times; that well…" He shivered at even the ghost of memory that clung to him.

"Well, this isn't about dreams. It's about trout, and bass, and maybe a few mackerel if Ol' Sam has his way. Maybe even lake sturgeon; them as lived over in the castle liked their caviar, though I'm not sure there's much of a market for it now."

"Yeah, the closest thing to 'high society' in Yharnam right now is mostly blue and glowing." Balyn wondered if they called people of rank things like "high society" and "the upper crust" because they inevitably liked to live at the top of the tallest buildings. You never found a king in a basement. "But if you're just fishing for ordinary fish, what do you need a hunter for?"

"The bait, man, the bait!"

"You're not planning to troll me behind the boat while fish nibble my toes, are you?"

The old man squinted at Balyn.

"I know you're a foreigner and that naturally gives a fellow some pretty odd beliefs, but I cannot imagine what kind of country gives a man such weird ideas of how fishing works! No, we use worms for bait, just like anybody else."

"Well, then, why am I here? I'm no better with a shovel than anyone else I know."

"I've never heard of anyone using a shovel to kill worms, but suit yourself. You're the hunter, not me. Now, we need no less than fifty of them, but we'll give you a bonus for every five above that. And make sure you get 'em full-size, mind you. None of the little three-footers that can barely even hop up to knee-height!"

~X X X~

A/N: Obviously, Balyn never played DS2, since all of the kings there ended up underground.