"Doesn't that hurt?" Faith asked.

  "Oh, it's excruciating," I said casually. "Right now, though, I'm using some autohypnosis to ighe pain, because it's just not going away until we get Emily bad she actually heal me."

  "...Do you want some healing?"

  "You should save your strength," I said. "I'm a cleric myself now, and my patron is the God of Death. As long as I don't do anything egregiously stupid... well, I'll live."

  "Hang on, you're a cleriow?!" Faith demanded. "Why don't you just heal yourself?!"

  "Because of divine burnout, duh," I said.

  "...What?"

  "You knohen you cast too many divine spells at a time, it starts to hurt?" I asked. "Yeah, that's burnout. Raw divine magic is corrosive to mortals like you and I, and there's only so much you use before it starts causing damage. If you keep practig, of course, then you build up a tolerance for it, but guess what I don't have time to do!"

  "Huh, so that's what it's called," Faith murmured.

  "You really got shafted by the Guild when they decided to just not bother training you," I said.

  "Anyhow, I thought Talia said that whole 'building up a tolerahing was bullshit," Faith added.

  "She was talking specifically about certain kinds of poisons," I said. "Stuff like alcohol, coe, opium- you totally build up a tolerao those. It's stuff like lead and arsenid the like where you ot, in fact, build up a tolerao those- there is hy way for your body to metabolize those that simply o be ditioned fher capacity, and also, those tend to accumute in your body in ways that are hard te."

  "Ahhhh," Faith said, nodding in uanding.

  "Sanic poisons, generally you build up a tolerance for them, but inanic poisons don't usually have that kind of option."

  Talia, still a rat in my pocket, chittered loudly and ily.

  "What's she trying to say?" Faith asked as though I spoke Rat or something. I mean, yeah, I had told her about Arthur, the pet rat I had as a kid, but Arthur wasn't a magical rat or anything.

  But, well, I was an Occultist, so I could pick up on what Talia was trying to unicate, which was "shut the fuck up for on yoddamn life while I try to fix your left lung so you don't suffocate." Frankly, that was dht diplomatic; if I was in her position, I would've expressed my displeasure with an uncooperative patient using my teeth.

  Fortunately for the skin I had that wasn't broken, Talia was han me, a healing me, bit by bit, as we slowly caught up to the dust cloud of the van. I was immediately grateful I was wearing goggles, and Faith was very grateful to have looted a pair of her own, along with a lightning wand.

  "Dammit," Faith muttered, as the lightning wand failed to have any meaningful impa the van. "It's made of metal, how is it resistant to lightning?"

  "Electricity follows the path of least resistance, and the metal frame just ducts the electricity straight into the ground," I said. "I know everyohinks it's entments that do it, but metal armor makes you effectively immuo low-phtning attacks."

  "What about high phtning attacks?" Faith asked.

  "You might as well just make them explode with your mind," I said dryly. "And while I'd love to do that, I'm not in the mood to spend magicka frivolously, so..."

  I drew my gun from my pocket, and as a cultist leaned out the passenger side door to take a shot at me, I shot him first, right between the eyes, and he fell out and onto the sands with a satisfying thump, leaving the door invitingly open behind him.

  "Volex, now," I ordered, patting the pocket where I kept her reliquary. She appeared in a fsh, one of my spare lightning wands already in her hand, as she lept through the air towards the open door.

  Unfortunately, there were other cultists in the , and Volex was almost immediately bsted back out by a burst of hellfire, dissolving her bato smoke and sending her back to her reliquary. I winced; she'd be fiually, but this robably the end of her usefuloday.

  "Shit," I muttered, trying to catch up to the point I could actually see through the door. Once I could, though, I found myself regretting it, as the cultist who'd bsted Volex had readied a crossbow, and fired as soon as I could see them.

  I threw up a quid dirty shield to protect myself and Faith, but the cultist's aim was off, and the bolt never hit my shield, which-

  Ah. Shit.

  I used some more magic to throw myself and Faith off of the bike, and onto the sands, as the bike tumbled beh us. As much as I was trying to kill the cultists, they didn't really need me dead iurn, and as such, this one had been smart enough to aim for a soft target: the tires of my motorcycle.

  As Faith and I tumbled across the sand, my bike nding perilously close ts, the van sped off away from us, the passenger side door closing without a parting shot.

  Or was it Parthian shot? I know that the Parthian horse-archers were credited with iing the tactic, all those years ago, but-

  "Joseph?" Faith asked, patting my face. "Stay with me, man. Don't die on me again."

  "I'm alive," I said. "Just..." I closed my eyes, and sighed deeply. "Just... FUCK!"

  "There we go," Faith said. "ahat fire going. Get mad."

  I levered myself up, stalking over to my bike, already pulling tools and rept parts out of my pockets. When I'd first built my motorbike, I'd just used standard bicycle wheels, but quickly realized I wanted something thicker and wider for this thing. Luckily for me, though, while I was (apparently) the first person to e up with the idea of "steam e explosions instead of hot water," I was not the first person to want a bicycle with a magical, self-propelled drive-train, and those also wanted bigger tires.

  So, since I knew I was gonna be gone for a while, once I headed off to Mount Fate, I'd stocked up on rept iubes, tires, and even a few spare wheels. A worthwhile use for fifty dolrs, which I fully expected to st me my entire academic career.

  There was just one slight problem, though:

  "God dammit," I muttered, as I unfastehe nut holding the axle in pce. "Fuck! Ow. Ow. Fuck."

  Iubes were the only part that folded up small enough to fit inside a pocket. Now, if this was just a puncture, that'd be fihe tire having a hole in it wasn't ideal, and I'd want to patch or repce it at earliest venience, but it would still work as long as there was a good iube i.

  Unfortunately, when someone shoots your wheel with a crossbow while you're up to speed, that tends to also fuck up the wheel rim, and it was not running straight anymore.

  And the spare rims were in the fug van.

  "You need help?" Faith asked.

  "Yeah," I said, nodding. "Turn that wrench, please. I'll hold the other one, just... We o get the wheel off, so I fix the rim. Talia, you stay as a rat for now, don't burn the magicka you'd o turn bato a rat once we have to get going again."

  Talia squeaked a few times- "If you're sure about that..."- and remained inside my pocket.

  "We are really lucky you carry all this random crap in your pockets," Faith said, as I stood the repaired bike back up.

  "Thank you, Mom, for insisting that I get really, really good at pocket dimensions and Bags of Holding," I said. Otherwise, I might not have been carrying a foldable wheel-truing stand in my pocket o the spare iubes.

  "Are those different things?" Faith asked.

  "Short version, yes," I said, nodding. "Slightly longer version, a pocket dimension is just a taihat's bigger on the inside, like the bay van. A Bag of Holding hold a lot more stuff for the same cost of entment, but it's only good for holding inanimate objects- living creatures tend to suffocate in them after a few minutes. Anyway, hop on."

  A searing nce of pain shot through my chest as I put weight oly the wrong muscle, but I mao not scream, and instead just lurched forward, making a strangled 'hnnngh!' noise.

  "I'm- I'm fine!" I insisted, as Faith put a hand on me. "We just o get our Healer baow, is all. ."

  This time, I did mao get bato the bike without further drama or trauma, and kicked the engine back to life. We had a lot of lost time to make up for- unfug the wheel aing the bike ba w order had taken us forty three minutes and twenty seven seds, acc to The Father's "gift" of perfect timekeeping- but fortunately for us, we already khe bike was faster than the van, and could catch up, given enough time.

  sidering how close we were to the Ziggurat, though, I could only pray we'd make it there before they did.

  "You think you got enough practice with that gun I gave you?" I asked, once we were underway.

  "It's gonna have to be enough," Faith said grimly.

  Unfortunately... she was right.

  AnnouAs always, if you like Iro and wao keep making it, the best way to do that is to leave a ent, here or on my discord server.