"Would you like me to come in?"

Taking stock, I find I stopped moving, lost in thought, about the time I finished taking off my clothes, so all four of the jumbo jugs on this body are hanging out, as is the big backside and hungry cavern. Eh, not really my body, I don't care. But I’m pretty sure it'll be better if Jessica can think straight for this, so I toss a quick Disguise Other on myself to look clothed. Why Disguise Other? It's a second level spell, and spells of higher level are harder to resist. The difference between first and second isn't much, but when both are free, there is no reason to pick the easier one.

Well, unless I want someone to see through it.

"Yes please."

She walks in, and pauses a moment when she sees me, "Where’d you get that?"

… right, she's a detective. Being observant and having a good memory are necessary qualities in her line of work. But the clothes I'm not wearing aren't really important. "I leveled up, and have access to more magic now. What you're seeing is a result of that," Strictly true. I take a breath, "But that’s not what I should probably tell you. I don't actually sleep anymore, and I think I have been making some bad decisions due to recent trauma, one of which was not telling you that."

She's trying to look encouraging, but I don't think she actually knows what to say here, so I march on, "Of immediate importance is that while you were at work, I found an underground lair in your backyard. Abandoned, apparently due to a reactor meltdown. The radiation is contained to one room," now, "and I can confirm I'm clean, but I was bored, so I got the place back up and running… and that's when I found the cameras. This entire house - including the showers - is on camera, fed to that facility. Best I can tell, nobody’s watching, but… well, you should know."

Why am I shaking?

"You went into that deathtrap?!"

"So you know about it?"

"Oh yes. It's part of why my grandmother could never sell this place: She didn't technically own it. She got a stipend for keeping up appearances, as do I, now. Nobody can go down there due to the radiation, but there are potentially classified docs, so… a guard forever. The stipend is not quite enough to live on, even with the free rent, so I also have a day job. That aside: How could you be so reckless as to go in there? Even without knowing about the meltdown, it's a sealed government facility, underground and abandoned for decades. You'd have to be … suicidal…"

As she trails off, I step into the conversation, "It's not like I stay dead. The place caving in on me or something would be a painful delay at worst. If I get overly radioactive, I can just melt this body and make a clean one, easy peasy. No job, friends, or family I can talk to since the change, so no big deal if I'm out for a few days."

She looks horrified for a moment, then hugs me for some reason, "Listen to me: YOU MATTER. Don't sell yourself short. Don't talk about killing yourself as a matter of convenience. You may be going through an unimaginably dark season, but it'll get better, take care of yourself."

I close my eyes as I hug her back and… why am I crying?  Her hug feels nice. She's noticeably taller than I am, and while she's not very busty, this does leave my face squished into a very nice pair.  Hmm… and her hands feel really nice on this body's skin. She keeps them smooth, so when she slides them down to cup my body's caboose, ooh, a finger just found my body's lower lips… OK, I’m getting a bit hot and bothered. But it's nice.

"Umm… are you actually wearing anything?"

Either she's lucky, has decent saves, or that much body contact constitutes 'proof'.  "Well… I got lost in thought halfway through changing, and realized we needed to talk… and you were right there… and it's not like this is my real body… and given what you were wearing this morning I didn't think you'd care… and I wasn't expecting a long hug... so just an illusion. But that feels nice, keep going."

I can feel her flushing… but she doesn't let go. She does migrate her fingers to more socially accepted zones, though. I nuzzle her chest a bit, and use my newfound strength to lift her up and plop her on the bed.

"Whoa, where did that come from? You were struggling to move clothes yesterday."

"One of the things I got when getting to level two. I am essentially wearing a transparent skin-tight power suit. I get to use it's strength and abilities in addition to my own: Instant body building. Had to go through some hoops to get it, but nothing particularly harmful. If I break my word, I'm going to feel sick for a day, but that’s it.  You want to visit the nuclear bunker under your house? There's really only one dangerous section, and that’s easy to avoid. They were planning for the long haul. Like a thousand years long. There's a farm down there."

"Wait… like fruits and vegetables?"

"Yeah. Nobody’s been caring for them, but there's apparently nothing down there that will hurt them, and it was set up as their ideal environment, so they've been thriving all this time.  That could change quickly if the wrong bug gets in, but for now? All you can eat fruit and veggies for the taking."

"How did you even get in? The lift in the garage has been powered down and welded shut since before I was born."

"I found an access hatch in your backyard under the sod. Leads to an old ladder. I didn't trust the ladder, and climbed down without it. I could also Levitate either of us."

"Wait, you can fly?"

"Not yet. Levitating is JUST up and down. So I could use it to go up and change a light bulb on a ceiling, but in order to get to the next bulb I'd have to come back down, walk, and go up again - or maybe grab the light fixture and push or pull myself over."

"'Yet'"

"I grow quickly. Which reminds me: I should be able to craft now, so whenever you’re ready, please place a large order for salt. Like, several tons. Should let me get to work on things you'll find useful."

"Before I go spending several hundred dollars on supplies… is there perhaps a smaller project you could do for proof of concept of magic tools I can use?"

I pause a moment, maybe the Sleeves of Many Garments? "For about twenty five pounds of salt I can make some sleeves that will let you change your outfit temporarily to whatever you want as often as you like just by putting them off and back on. Ballgown, police uniform, silk suit, biker leathers, whatever." Might as well stick with 25% on the 100 gp crafting materials. Although I do have a few tricks to make that cheaper; I get a 5% discount from a trait when crafting, and there’s the option of deliberately cursing an item in a harmless way: a worn item for a human that's not a caster is going to be perfectly reliable if said item only works in the hands of a noncaster within ten feet of a humanoid, and that would cut like 51% off the price - makes larger items faster to make, too. So I can get her what I said for 9.31 pounds of salt.

"So about ten bucks for a test I'll be able to actually use. Yes, I priced salt on the way over. The store brand of table salt is cheap. That'll do. And yeah, if it's safe, I would like to see Bungalow 13."

"It has a number?"

"Yeah. It was built as a backup retreat point for the president of the day in case the Cheyenne Mountain Complex or the one under The White House was too far to reach in time. There's like forty of them. Idea was that the president would never be more than a few hundred miles from an NBC safe haven."

"Pardon my ignorance, but…"

"Nuclear, Biological, Chemical. Safe from radiation, engineered diseases, mustard gas, you name it. Sixty feet of dirt, lead, and reinforced concrete will stop a lot. Won't take a direct hit from a nuke, but a small one going off at, say, City Hall? Shelter will be fine."

"What did that even cost? That place has everything you need except people to rebuild modern industry, and it's set up to run without support for like a thousand years. Seriously, the instructions on generator two said to switch to generator three in five hundred years. That isn't a safehouse, it's the seed of civilization. Assuming they have some how-to books stashed in there, anyway."

"... and the only reason it doesn't have people is because of the meltdown. It was before my time, and apparently WAY over my pay grade. I was told I was guarding a defunct safehouse."

"Well… it would make a great lair for a mad scientist.  It has power now. Want to see if the lift works?"

"It's welded shut, remember? And the controls are 'downstairs'. They didn't want folks getting down there."

"Ah. So the shaft it is, then. I'll show you…"

"Put some real clothes on first, please."

"Oh, right."

I put on the baby carrier, using it to wrap my body's massive melons and keep them in place, then add a shirt and a skirt. Still nothing on my body's nethers, but eh.  And then we head over to where the backup entrance is buried.