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Post by Lynn Gail on Feb 13, 2023 22:57:58 GMT -8
One might imagine that, after what had happened the last time she left the city, Lynn might have learned better than to go aimlessly traipsing and wandering about all willy-nilly and completely lacking any cares in the world. One might even go so far as to imagine that she would be incredibly reluctant to go anywhere near leaving the city, lest she end up in wild farm country again and possibly get roped into doing more work.
....one might imagine as much, but unfortunately, one would be wrong.
Lynn was often said to have been blessed with the forethought and relative object permanence best compared to a particularly intelligent housecat, by some of her more maliciously playful friends. She didn't really have any idea what they meant by it, so just laughed along with them whenever it was brought up.
That might work to explain, at least partially, how she ended up where she was now. Seated on a boulder -- was it actually a boulder, though, or just a large rock? Or maybe some kind of cliff with dwarfism? -- on the banks of a river, just off the side of a road. An actual road at least this time, a clear and distinctive marker and trail leading her back (eventually) to her safe haven of citydom. East City might not have been talked about that, but hey -- it was home, and that counted for something, right?
And now, as Lynn sat on her rocky perch, hanging out over the river and idly swinging her legs back and forth while watching the rushing foam of the waters and all the wonders of life they (probably) held pass by below her, she was absolutely bored out of her skull. There was only so much brainpower she had available each day, you know; and she could only devote so much of that to trying to entertain herself when nothing was going on!
....speaking of nothing going on, a sudden fracas coming from somewhere upriver drew her attention rather smartly. She leaned out over the river, bringing a hand up to shade her eyes. "I smell shenanigans, tomfoolery and possibly even horseplay," she muttered, squinting into the distance. Whatever it was out in the not so wild and distant not very blue yonder, it was sure causing a ruckus and general disturbance of the peace.
The sudden startled yell and resounding chorus of splashes from up the river made her perk up though. "Oooh, tomfoolery it is, then!" she said brightly while hopping up to her feet. Peering intently down in the 'up the river' direction, she waited intently for any sign of anything interesting, slightly curious or even just kind of out of the ordinary. She was finally gifted by the sight of something -- or someONE -- flailing and spazzing about as they were dragged down the river by a chunk of what looked suspiciously like a giant stone block.
But that would be silly.
Lynn just squinted at the poor sap as they were carried downstream, until they drew near. "Hey, buddy!" And she lifted a hand in a wave, smiling broadly. "Nice work!"
The captain of the worst riverboat in the world flailed out a frantic wave in return, and babbled something that sounded like a waterlogged tuba trying to play rock and roll as they tried desperately to stay afloat.
".....sorry, dude, I don't speak soggy trombone!" she called after him.
He wheezed and sputtered out what had to be at least a quarter of a lungful of water, wrenching his head above water. "For the love of Mister Satan, help!" And his head nearly went under again as the chunk of brickrock tumbled and rolled over slightly in the water.
"Aaaah. Got it." Lynn smacked a closed fist into her open palm. "That was how you ask for help in fish language!" And without missing a beat, she took a step back and with a running start leaped off the rocky shore and dove into the water, swimming briskly after her new friend.
Because after saving someone, of course they would be her friend! That was just how life worked.
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Post by Lynn Gail on Feb 14, 2023 19:11:26 GMT -8
Lynn was, ultimately, not what you would call a...super strong swimmer. She wasn't a bad one by any stretch of the imagination, but most (okay, almost all) of her swimming had been done in relatively calm waters. A pool, or occasionally a pond or lake. Nothing with any kind of real current to fight against. Diving headfirst into water and trying to fish out someone helplessly caught under an aggressive chunk of dislodged brickwork, though? As it turned out: not a super great first introduction to river swimming.
Which, of course, meant that she only almost drowned herself by the time she had hauled the nearly-drowned fool back to shore. He crawled out of the mud onto the riverbank, coughing and sputtering as he retched up a lungful or two of water, while managing to croak out a feeble "thanks". Lynn, for her part, just bent over and promptly vomited out a similar amount of water, wheezing out a muffled "you're welcome" when she could get in a breath.
Several unpleasant minutes later, when both had caught their breath again, Lynn was busy making a sour face while trying (mostly futilely) to wring and squeeze all the water out of her clothes. She had forgotten to disrobe before her magnificent rescue dive, you see; her bodysuit was naturally (mostly) repellant, but the rest of her attire? Not so fortunate. The one she had rescued seemed to care less about that, having already explained he was somewhat used to getting a little 'absolutely drenched to the bone' here and there thanks to his job.
"What kinda job do you have where you can get used to gettin' that wet all the time?" Lynn, in one of her rare moments of Actually Functioning Human Intelligence, managed to piece together what was, in essence, a completely normal and logical question, born of one of those rare things called A Complete Thought.
"Ah, well...construction," the soggy sod admitted, with a hapless shrug. "Castlestone Resources. Contracts have just been piling in lately from every which way about getting new dams built; we've been swamped." He put his face in his hands, looking for all the world like he wanted to scream. "I'd kill for a couple days off sometime soon...but at least the pay's good, I guess."
"Sounds rough," Lynn said offhandedly, having lost most interest around the time he mentioned the company he worked for. "But what's that got to do with you gettin' wet all the time?"
"Uh...?" he just stared blankly in response. "We...we've been building dams?" he stammered.
"Yeah-huh." Lynn nodded absently while turning one of her shoes upside down and watching the trickle of water that came pouring out.
"Uh....y'know. Dams. Over rivers?"
"Oh. Right. Those things." She tapped one hand against the heel of her shoe. "Didn't know beavers could run a company."
The poor man's brain actually stopped functioning for a second, and he slowly started to tilt back. He briefly wondered if it was worth it to take the effort to tug his fleeing spirit back down to Earth or not before snapping out of his daze. "They're....not beavers," he finally managed. "It's for...uh, power generation and stuff. Hydroelectricity."
"Gezundheit," Lynn mumbled, making sure her other shoe was drained of water as well.
"No no no." The man rubbed at his face with both hands. "Like...generating electricity and energy from moving water!"
"Ooooh." Lynn finally looked up at him, flashing a confident smile. "So you guys are doing magic up there!" And she nodded sagely.
The poor worker looked like he wanted to scream, for some reason.
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Post by Lynn Gail on Feb 15, 2023 5:42:36 GMT -8
"So you building a dam somewhere up there, then?" Lynn gestured vaguely in the direction of somewhere upriver.
"Yeah. Been going pretty well until some of our equipment had some, uh...issues." The worker rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "Ended up getting knocked off into the river when that block came loose before we could get it set in place. Honestly not sure how I didn't end up crushed or something..."
"Guess you were just lucky!" Lynn chirped, flashing a toothy grin. "Or maybe you're just secretly super awesome and your latent hero reflexes kicked in, so you dived into the water before it could actually land on you!"
"Uh...y-yeah. Maybe." The worker just chuckled quietly, shaking his head. "But anyway, I should probably be getting back up there... Boss'll kill me if he finds out I'm not actually dead, otherwise."
"You gonna be able to finish things up, up there?" Lynn tilted her head. "With your broken stuff and all."
"I...don't know." He shrugged helplessly as he pushed himself up to stand, futilely brushing and dusting himself off. "We still have some more, but it's gonna delay things for sure. Especially given we're already stretched thin; got so many projects, we've had to divvy up some of our crews and hire on temp staff just to keep things at half strength on each job."
"Ouch." Lynn shook her head, before she hopped up herself. "Well, alright then; let's go!"
"Wuh?"
"Let's go!" Lynn just nodded, her cheery smile never faltering. "It sounds like you could use some help. And helping out is what friends do, right?"
"Uh....?" The worker just stared, the gears in his head audibly straining. "I...guess? But what do you..."
"Come on, now." Lynn put her hands on her hips indignantly, leaning forward with a pout on her face. "I just saved your life, here! And y'know who does that? Friends!"
"I..." He wanted to refute that. But he really couldn't. She was technically right; most people wouldn't go out of their way for a complete stranger unless they were some kind of hero or something. The only problem was...he'd never met this crazy chick in his life! "...okay. Fine." And he visibly deflated, running a hand over his face. "It isn't like we couldn't use another hand. It'll be up to the boss, of course, but...you ever done construction work before?"
"Oh, yeah, for sure." Lynn nodded absently, having tuned out somewhere around where they could use more help. "Lead the way, buddy!"
"....get the feeling I'm gonna regret this, somehow," the frazzled worker muttered, before shaking his head and taking off back upriver at a brisk jog, with his new batshit crazy 'friend' trailing along behind him in some kind of mind-numbing prance-run that he was pretty damn sure shouldn't have actually let her move fast enough to keep up. But there she was, keeping up anyway, like she just wasn't bound by the same rules and physics most people were. It might have given him a headache to try and figure out, if he didn't already have one from this entire...everything.
Lynn, for her part, just hummed nonsense to herself as she skipped and bounded along after her new friend. The fact she had just managed to rope herself into another long bout of grueling physical labor was lost on her, though she would soon (if she had the hindsight to realize) come to regret her decisions and violently blame her past self for her stupidity and lack of foresight.
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