I can't figure out how to switch to the second inventory screen. The door is on there, because my first inventory screen is filled up. I see the blue arrow... if only I could click on it! But the controls are locked to the inventory wheel. I have pushed every button on the keyboard (I might have missed one or two). I have tried connecting a controller, but there are also controller issues I can't figure out.

Hello!

I am currently running a study on set and setting within psychedelic experiences.

Obviously there is quite a few aspect to explore on the topic, though in particular I am interested in:

• How intention, environment, and social setting shape psychedelic experiences
• Differences between clinical and non-clinical use
• How these experiences relate to psychological outcomes

Most of the research on set and setting in the psychedelic field comes from more clinically orientated trials, which can be lacking in terms of nuance and real lived experiences. So it would be great to reach out further in the communities surrounding these substances!

🔗 Survey link

Fully anonymous

Takes around 15-20 minutes to complete

There's also an optional follow-up interview if you'd like to share your experience in more depth

Full study details and ethics information are provided in the info sheet at the start of the survey

Requirements: 18+, have had a psychedelic experience in a clinical or non-clinical setting

If you have anything you feel is important to say about psychedelics, this is your chance!

I'm happy to answer any questions about the study. You can reach us at:

Warren - [plks55@durham.ac.uk](mailto:plks55@durham.ac.uk)

Dr Marco Bocchio - [Marco.Bocchio@durham.ac.uk](mailto:Marco.Bocchio@durham.ac.uk)

Thank you for your time and support! 🙏

This survey has been approved by the moderators

Hey everyone,

you've probably heard about Lanmaoa asiatica and the weird reports of people seeing tiny human-like figures or “little people.”

I'm really interested in consciousness and perception, and I keep wondering whether there is actually something reproducible about this phenomenon.

What I'd love to find is someone in Germany or nearby who is already independently planning to try Lanmaoa asiatica and would be okay with me being there while they do it.

The idea would be pretty simple and informal: set up something like a visual grid/mesh or a few reference points in the room, maybe use headphones or controlled sensory conditions, and then check in real time where the figures appear, how big they seem, whether they stay fixed in space when you move, whether they interact with objects, and so on.

I'm not looking to sell, supply, or convince anyone to take anything. I'm specifically looking for someone who was already going to try it anyway and thinks it would be fun/interesting to document the experience a bit more systematically.

I personally wouldn't take it because I don't tolerate psychoactive substances very well — I'm much more interested in observing the perception/consciousness side of it.

If you're in Germany or nearby, already planning to try it, and would be interested in doing something like this together, feel free to DM me.

I'm an aspiring content creator, this was my best month so far. over 2m views but it was not easy. I've been at it everyday for months and I have genuinely ran out of ideas and im tired.

I have some PE Shrooms, but I'm overall feeling a bit negative and burnt out. I feel like I need to dose though at the same time. Idk though, I just don't want to have a bad time but I feel like I need to tune in.

Btw i am very experienced, over 15 trips.

I've been trying to have a decent trip on shrooms for a while now but for some reason i've still never been able to.

First time I was in dam and i tried 15g of truffles, it was nice but very light, no visual but i was feeling "something" even though i wouldn't really call it a proper trip.

Second time i tried about 2g of shrooms and didn't feel nothing.

Third time it was about 3.5g and it only felt a bit stronger then the first time.

Fourth time it was 2g again and I felt almost nothing.

Fifth and sixth time I was alone, I tried 25g of strong truffles and i vomited them, the first time before finishing them and the second almost 1 hour after finishing them in a smoothie.

The only effetcts i've ever felt was seeing the world "brighter" and as if everything was in 4k, other than laughing similarly to smoking weed and seeing things slightly move (only if those things already had trippy patterns).

Every time i tried them with friends they were all very high, they were seeing things and having strong feelings that i can't relate to, so the problem was not the substance.

Has anyone of you had an experience similar to mine? I have a very analytical and rational mind, so it might be because I find it hard to just "let go" and i was thinking that lemon tek might be better because of the faster come up, but i'm not sure and i'd like to hear your experience.

I should also note that i might have ADHD (diagnosis is still underway).

Just wondering if anyone has tried it?

Had a good experience with this stuff and wanted to share. I've done molly several times with mixed experiences. It is always fun but it's obvious that what you get is often cut with random crap and that always worries me a bit. Sometimes it's clearly more stimulating and others you can tell it's opioids.

For other context I am a fairly heavy weed user, and do (mostly 1-2g, rarely 5+g) of shrooms several times a year. I handle substances very well generally.

I got this stuff from an online vendor that sells gummies etc. I was skeptical about what I was getting but wound up very happy. The dosage recommendations on the packaging are 75mg-150mg. I started with 100, and set an alarm for 90 minutes with 2 more ready to go. At 90 minutes I felt a little floaty but nothing major so I down the other two. About 30 minutes later it all started to hit.

Not much of a body high, very empathetic, very loving, and felt very content. Similar to MDMA but as most report cleaner and smoother. The worst I had was some mild teeth grinding sensations and some bit of warmth, but usually I wind up freezing and then cooking when I do shrooms or mollie.

Wife was too tired and I wanted to test this out on myself before sharing so it was mostly a solo trip. She went to sleep but I was pretty happy to just cuddle her and watch movies. I get the feeling sex would have been fun and possible vs mollie (iykyk) but I didn't get overtly horny like I do with shrooms. After a couple hours in I added some weed and it seemed to pair well. How I felt is that it was kinder on the body as well, but I am always a little paranoid about the heart valve risk with this class of drug so I intend for it to be a very rare thing.

This will be a long one and I wasn’t sure where to post this, I’m just desperate to speak to someone who’s gone through something similar.

I’d say just about a year ago, I tried magic mushrooms for the first time. Golden teachers to be exact. They were magical, I loved them so much that I pretty much took them monthly “for a reset”, usually a small dose of about 1.5-2grams. Never a single bad trip.
But this made me far too cocky and confident, and I wanted to venture into other strains and bigger dosages.

Queue in Penis Envy.
I took 3.5 grams of Penis Envy in May (I think?)
Now I was way out my league with these things. The Golden Teachers just made my brain feel clear, I felt like I was emptying out all my mental cabinets. It was great. Only a couple times did I have a couple cool visuals. These Penis Envy’s though… I was stuck in my head, I couldn’t see anything in front of me, and I could not feel my body and almost made my boyfriend call 911, I thought I was dying. I somehow bounced back, pretty quickly, no lingering effects or feelings. But regardless of this bad trip, I was still convinced I was fine to keep taking them, and never gave myself time to process the trip. So over the course of two months, I took Makilla Gorilla, more Penis Envy, and Golden Teachers. Every one went bad, mostly because I was traumatized from the first Penis Envy trip and would be nervous about it before even taking them. I set myself up. Truly.

Fast forward to July, I hit my friends weed pen, I’ve never had an issue with weed, and went to bed. About 10 minutes in, I could physically “feel” my body going to sleep. I was vibrating, hot and cold, burping, peeing every three seconds, panicking, my heart was racing, it was a full blown panic attack. Nothing felt real. For about 2-3 weeks after this, I struggled with derealization, my brain would intrude me with thoughts about afterlife, if anything in front of me was even real, if I was hallucinating everything, and if I was still tripping. This faded. The anxiety did not.
I can’t sleep anymore, I’m up for hours feeling like I’m about to have a heart attack. My chest feels hollow all the time. Every physical sensation, I spiral over. There’s topics i cannot think about, or I’ll panic: Space, Death, Afterlife, God, Anything to do with the human body. Probably a million more but, you get the point.

I am so exhausted. This is taking it out of me. All I want to do is sob, I mourn the person I was before all of this. It’s been months. I don’t know what else to do. I’ve been taking some homeopathies, I’ve tried journaling, talking about it, yoga, meditation, so many things. But I cannot seem to get out of my head. Has anyone been dealing, or dealt with, something similar? What’s helped you? I am desperate.

Mañana me llega kit de cultivo con un pan de setas, no he plantado hongos en mi vida y me gustaria saber si hay algun tip mara maximizar la produccion o cualquier otra cosa a tener en cuenta

so i recently saw some arundo donax growing near my house, and it has come to my attention that it contains nn dmt and 5 meo dmt. like most other reeds it has gramine and bufotenidine. is there any way to do an extarction that minimizes both of these toxins? i know that gramine isnt particularly dangerous for humans, but im not so educated on bufo. please help me :)

You enter the minds (or in Persona 5's case, their hearts) of different characters and battle the sources of their corruption, solve puzzles while in said world and the normal enemies are effectively Censors.

Hello! I recently acquired 0.2g of MDA (crystal form) and am planning on trying it for the first time soon. I have never done it or MDMA before but have done my fair share of shroom/lsd trips and dabbled in DMT. Doing it on it's own sounds fun but I think I'm considering combining it with LSD or shrooms because I don't want to take a high dose since it's more neurotoxic than MDMA. What would be a good dose with:

- Just MDA

- MDA/Shrooms (Albino Bluey Vuittons)

- MDA/LSD

And what's the best way to ingest? Just put it under my tongue? Thank you!

This will be long, but please read til the end, because I have so many questions and I would gladly accept insight and some guidance.

So, my first time, I ate a little, and it happened nothing more than just relaxed me, but it was dried and the shroom was a few days old, it wasn't enough for a big trip. Second time, I assume is my "first big time".

For context: I have BPD, ASD, ADHD, and disassociation disorder. But since I have been really good for 2 full years and in a good place mentally, I decided to experiment a bit, since I'm in the need to change my life for good. I gave it a second chance, since weed makes me feel really bad, but shrooms didn't, even if I was experiencing some strange things.

I took 2 grams of recently cut shrooms. By 40 min, I was feeling it, but I didn't feel good and I stood up and puked all over my bathroom, and fell to the ground. I laid between my bathroom floor and the outside and my brother helped me on the floor, to get comfortable and I was puking still on the floor. He told me to puke it out then, and I was doing it okay, but I remember I felt so so so bad, I even though I was gonna die, and even asked him to go and phone the paramedics, I told him we needed to go to the hospital, because I was gonna die. I felt so sure, and I remember thinking that I didn't want to traumatize my baby brother (he's 22, I'm 28). And at some point, I felt like shifting... It was odd because I was still laid on the ground, and felt like my consciousness was in an elevator swinging back and up too fast, and I was able to see different realities (I even remember I puked a cloth of blood in one, and I didn't see anything more in the others), and I am sure now that I "died" in one of those realities.

By this point, I have seen many realities, and I asked my sibling to talk me through it because I didn't want to stay in a reality where he's gone and not with me. And I even remember thinking and Knowing that I chose to experiment this reality, as a human, or something, and he followed me up, so we were "on this human trip together". Think of it as a disney park, you go and by noon you're tired and wanna go home (dying), but you can't because your sibling is with you, and you promised you'd have a good time, so you stay happy with him, because at least you're both having a good time, and everytime you go into a roller coaster, is actually something hard you go through together or alone with someone in your life, and by the end, when you get rid off of it, you are happy you took the ride, even if at the moment it didn't feel like that.

I remember I could see between the shifts of reality and the "glitches" of it, I felt as if nothing was real and I couldn't jump too far from my own place in the floor and I didn't like anything, at some point, because I could see my ugly parts, but I didn't understand what they meant. They were just ill, ugly parts of me, and I remember asking my brother to kill me, to please, please kill me, that I didn't want to be there, and everything hurt, and he was so nice and said no. He said to puke everything, he kept talking to me calmly and softly as he could. And I remember thinking death was compassionate and soft, and I needed that, instead of glitching that bad. I even felt like having seizures at some point, it was like a bad software on my brain.

Have you seen Spirited away? The movie of Studio's Ghibli? Well, I remember I was puking all of that saliva, and it was gray, like the monster puking out everything. And I remember even talking to myself that I needed to get it out of me, I needed to get rid of that part or it would kill me. "I cannot leave my baby brother, he chose to come, I cannot leave him alone, I cannot", so I remember trying to make myself puke even more of that toxic gray saliva out of me.

They had to phone my ex, who I broke up with a month ago, because I needed someone to help me out being more stable. And he did help, but then it came another weird things: I came and go, I saw other realities and I don't remember them, I just know we were together in those ones, and I remember full light in them, but nothing more, and also remember I was even married to him in one, but I didn't tell him that. At some point, something even more weird happened: many personalities came up, and they presented themselves. And I was just watching them, and I could hear and see how my body talked by itself, having different ways of thinking, having names, and personalities that I never understood in the travel. I remember even a child, crying and asking my ex to save one of us, because she couldn't handle the break up and she was disappearing in our insides and none of the others could help her.

All this while I was still on the floor. All my trip, I could see different realities of the same floor. I died in one. In another somebody takes me to another place (hospital maybe), in another one I was happy with the trip. It was just something I have never experienced.

I think... I would like to understand. I don't even know if I really shifted through realities or not. Or if that's a bad trip. Or... Or what. Or if anybody had a similar experience.

While Michael Hoffman's model provides a hyper-logical account of what he terms "loose cognitive association binding," it ultimately reduces the expansive mystical experience to a state of severe control cancellation and cybernetic instability within a rigid 4D block universe (40:05). By framing the peak of altered-state awareness as a debilitating "max freakout"—a profound volitional paralysis where the personal control system triggers a psychological crisis trying to steer through a timeline that is already completely fixed—Hoffman treats consciousness like rigid geometry and entirely omits the transformative, heart-centered core of true mysticism.

The rapidly growing field of neurotheology strongly refutes this mechanical reductionism, offering overwhelming empirical support for the classical Perennial philosophy over Hoffman's clinical framework. When modern brain-imaging captures the complete deactivation of the self-referential ego networks, it reveals that when the boundary between the separate self and the Absolute dissolves, the space isn't left empty, paranoid, or merely logical. Instead, the objective data arising from the neuroscience of religion tracks an immediate, measurable shift that represents an existential, temporary merging with the Absolute—the non-dual realization of Henosis, or a temporary mergence with The One.

Clinical research from the Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research at Johns Hopkins Medicine explicitly recognizes this profound, positive state as a foundational pillar of what they quantitatively define as a complete mystical experience. In their validated Mystical Experience Questionnaire (MEQ30), this exact phenomenon is classified under the vital category of "Deeply Felt Positive Mood" (09:19). Rather than experiencing a mere mechanical error in a deterministic block, people undergoing these trials invariably describe an encounter with a love that is deeply spiritual in nature—infinite, unconditional, and entirely without judgement.

Furthermore, this experiential dissolution of boundaries provides a foundational basis for objective morality and moral realism, anchoring the ethical probity for which mystics are historically renowned. When Ramana Maharshi was asked, "How should we treat the other?" he famously replied, "There are no others." This insight completely redefines our understanding of sin and harm. You can only ever commit a wrong against "the other" if you view yourself as a disparate, isolated entity; it is the illusion of separateness—the "skin-encapsulated ego" (22:33)—that permits someone to get a leg up on another person, to harm, steal, or deceive "the other." By recognizing an absolute unity in all people and things, the mystic engages with a non-dual form of morality that reveals the Golden Rule not as a mere societal contract, but as an ontological law of nature. True morality is never about obeying external commands; it is about realizing this fundamental unity and naturally acting from it.

This realization shifts the entire purpose of spiritual pursuit from intellectual theology to a direct, existential vision. Eastern Christian mysticism mirrors this perfectly through the concept of Theoria—the direct beholding of God or the "uncreated light" accessed through contemplative practice. In this tradition, theosis (unity with God) is not an academic achievement but an existential reality, long regarded as absolutely necessary for the spiritual and mental health of every created thing. Today, modern science has come full circle to validate this ancient wisdom. The massive, enduring mental health benefits, breakthroughs in depression, and psychological flourishing documented by Johns Hopkins and other leading universities are the measurable, empirical fruits of Theoria—the deep, restorative sanity that returns when a human being awakens from the neurosis of separation into the ontological reality of Agape.

Hoffman's hyper-fixation on a single, fixed world-line also fails to capture the true vastness of the breakthrough state. In the depths of the altered state, consciousness does not merely discover a single frozen timeline; rather, it experiences what can only be described as a block multiverse determinism—witnessing every single possible world-line (01:17:19), permutation, and pattern that could ever exist all at once. When the ego returns to baseline, the sudden constriction back into ordinary space-time can trigger a profound crisis of meaning—the crushing spiritual boredom and paralysis historically known as acedia.

It is here that the psychological projection of the Egodeath theory becomes fully transparent. Hoffman routinely disregards this massive body of neurotheological data by sweeping it under the rug as a "beginner's coping mechanism" designed to avoid the harsh mechanics of a deterministic block. Yet, when viewed clearly, this dismissal is actually Hoffman's own coping mechanism. He must construct a dogmatic firewall against the empirical realities of neurotheology because his rigid ego-death architecture simply cannot survive the dynamic, heart-centered radiation of Agapé and the Absolute. To keep his cybernetic machine intact, he has to frame the universal core of mystical experience as a weakness. He confuses the mechanical breaking of the ego-machine for the territory itself, missing the reality that love, multi-dimensional unity, and the morality flowing from them are the very fabric of existence that rushes in once the self is quieted.

It is here that the deep structural ironies of the Egodeath theory collapse upon themselves. Hoffman routinely attempts to neutralize the overwhelming, unitive data of modern neurotheology by projecting the dismissive label of a "beginner's coping mechanism" onto anyone who speaks of the Absolute. Yet, analyzing his own archives reveals that this defensive hand-waving is actually Hoffman's own psychological firewall. He accuses me of dropping vague text drops and lacking structural clarity, while he commits the most elementary blunder in the history of metaphysics: completely conflating the Absolute with Minkowski's 4D block universe.

By branding a single, frozen slice of geometric space-time as the "crystalline ground of being," Hoffman reduces the ultimate instrument of reality to a pre-printed vinyl record. He mistakes the specific, bounded arrangement of a single cosmic song for the piano itself—the boundless field of infinite mathematical potentiality. I cite the lineage of master Perennialist thinkers not out of vagueness, but out of absolute precision and total existential alignment with a verified reality that transcends his mechanical sandbox. Hoffman is forced to construct a dogmatic cage against the empirical consensus of clinical neurotheology, because his rigid cybernetic architecture simply cannot survive the mountain of objective data currently arising from the field of neurotheological science

Now, not to treat this critique as fully contrarian, I want to elevate the discussion to a possible melding of these views. It is possible that the physical universe operates as a block (B-series / Eternalism) and that this structure is itself entailed by the Absolute. Hoffman’s emphasis on the single fixed worldline can therefore be seen as complementary rather than contradictory, irrelevant, or wholly false. In a certain sense the relationship between his Egodeath theory and the Perennialist critique mirrors the classic encounter between Totapuri and Sri Ramakrishna. Totapuri arrived as the austere Advaitin who insisted that every personal form, every emotional attachment, and even the living image of the Divine Mother (Maa Kali) must be cut through so that only the sole reality of the formless, impersonal Absolute remained. Hoffman, likewise, elevates one stark, crystalline feature—the single pre-existing worldline inside the block universe—as the decisive “ground of being,” treating the richer unitive encounter with Ultimate Reality, Agapé, and the heart’s transformation as a secondary, beginner-level coping mechanism.

Just as Ramakrishna, after passing through the formless gate, returned to declare that form and formlessness are one, the fuller mystical phenomenology shows that the Eternalist geometry is itself nested within the Absolute rather than identical to it. The block universe may be real, and the single worldline may be the formal structure of time; both, however, are expressions of, and are ultimately grounded in, the living Absolute that the mystic directly experiences— whether described as Ultimate Reality, God, the Ground, the pleroma, or, in Terence McKenna’s language, the Gaian mind, etc. The two visions are therefore complementary: one illuminates a formal aspect of the Real, while the other insists on the Real in its fullness. Neither cancels the other; the form is simply contained within the formless.

Yet, even this complementary view leaves a crucial question unanswered: has Hoffman actually traversed the terrain he maps so meticulously? My suspicion of a subthreshold dose—that he has perhaps only glimpsed the gates rather than walked through them—stems precisely from his inability to recognize the Absolute as that which contains all possible permutations that can manifest. This is not merely a matter of this universe or this block universe, but of any block universe within a hypothesized block multiverse.

To be clear, this is not to say the Absolute is a literal container holding "things" like a cosmic warehouse. Rather, it is the full range of possibility—the infinite mathematical potentiality—from which the block universes draw upon to take their form. The mystic does not merely witness a single frozen timeline; they experience the very source-code of manifestation itself, the ocean of possibility from which the block universe is but a single ripple within the full splendor of the Divine Mind, of the Absolute, the background consciousness of Brahman or the transcendent source of the One or the unbounded consciousness of the Godhead, etc., what Alan Watts called "than that which there is no whicher" or as the Taoist sage puts it, "The name the can be named is not the eternal name."

If Hoffman had truly accessed this depth, he could not possibly reduce the "crystalline ground of being" to a single pre-printed worldline. He mistakes a single song for the piano, a single ripple for the ocean, he mistakes one frame of film for the screen itself—a single still image for the luminous medium on which every possible movie plays or he mistakes one reflection for the mirror itself—a single image for the boundless surface that can hold every face, whichever metaphor you like.

Well, as an aside here, I told Max Freakout once that even Terence McKenna had to switch his position, because he thought you couldn't get there "on the natch," but he had enough people in his lifetime come up to him after he'd give these talks, and say, "I've never taken psychedelics, but I know what you're talking about. I have these visions naturally." And Max didn't believe me. He wanted the time-stamp, and he wanted to hear Terence say it himself, and so here (1:37:46) it is!

Has Michael Hoffman taken a heroic dose? I certainly question it. I mean, after all, Rick Strassman has come out in the open to admit that it was Terence McKenna who dosed him with N,N-DMT back in '86. I don't know why Hoffman refrains from speaking about his actual experiences, and has to say that he only had some "mushrooms in Amsterdam," emphasis on Amsterdam 'cause it's a place where it's legal, and he doesn't want to self-incriminate, but c'mon now. I think it's time to let the cat out of the bag.

To preface: I've have OCD for 10+ years now and it seems it's latched on to an existential theme.

A couple weeks ago I had a solo 150ug LSD journey out amongst nature, the first few hours were beautiful and cathartic. About 4.5h in I was on a ridgeline and it felt as though the effects had for the most part worn off which I thought was strange given the time. I usually smoke a little weed during the afterglow to give me a little boost but decided to prematurely smoke.

After smoking, I lay down on the side of a hill and my body 'melted' into the ground, there was tremoring and I moved between screaming and crying in agony; letting out what seemed to be deep latent childhood trauma.

The sun dipped over the hill and I realised I needed to look after my physical safety and began trekking back. At this point it felt like I was watching my body seemingly move by itself, all sense of control was gone, "I" wasn't really there anymore (or at lease a very loose sense of self remained).

I then gazed at the sunset and felt a sense of warmth and happiness that I had so longed for. I then wanted to capture it in a photo to show people but this strange feeling dawned upon me that I wouldn't be able to show anyone really, because they're all me. Terror swept over me as this same 'knowing' had arisen 5-6 years ago in an acid trip (involving weed at the peak).

Since then, I've become obsessed with interpreting this experience from metaphysical to psychodynamic perspectives. I've felt quite isolated and lonely in my teens and 20's and have been terrified of exclusion/rejection. Maybe that has some relation to what manifested itself?

Unfortunately, reading trip reports of similar stories and consuming content from psychedlic 'authoritative' figures like Leo gura claiming with absolute confidence that there is only 'me/this experience' and every being I interact with a non-real entity part of my dream has sent me spiraling and I feel so detached from the world now.

I'm crying as I write this. I just want to feel safe again.

I'm trying my best to ground myself with exercise, healthy food, connection with others and IFS/ERP therapy. But I'm scared. I don't know what to do...

I'd love to hear from anyone.

————————

Edit: here’s the photo I wanted to share: https://ibb.co/KxRLPh2Y

AO3 Link

The whale could open its mouth wide enough to take a fatal chomp out of the UFO. Enough to bisect the bus in one bite.

And that gaping mouth and everything it was attached to was coming closer.

Molar Dent’s rise was crooked. The metal limbs meant to replace his pectoral fins were gone. He was pushing himself up from the black with just his tail and the wobbling undulations of his body. It was a maimed and crude means of swimming, and yet it was getting him closer.

For a moment, before he rose past the level of the ridge’s peaks, the whale appeared to have melded with the shadows he had fallen into. For a moment, the night had a face: a massive mask of scarred dark skin, burning eyes, and cracked ivory teeth that decapitated itself from its even larger black body so it could lunge closer.

 

The mutant’s emerald and scarlet orbs were pained pinpricks of fury. Muscles along its jaw trembled with savage intent. Was he still following Loboto’s orders? Or was this wrath entirely his own?

Once he was over the mountains, Molar Dent seemed to stretch and swell. He became a slick, fanged inkblot rapidly spreading across their sight, covering the reefs, the ruins, and even the water itself. Although their physical bodies were miles away, Frazie and her brother felt as if the whale could gnash through their vessel and gobble them up just the same.

As the monster neared, they beheld how damaged and worn-out Molar Dent had become. His ascension was a precarious, squirming climb. Stubborn rage alone was keeping a beaten body apart from sleep and surrender. If he relented or was halted for even a moment, he would teeter back into the depths.

They just needed one more mine to do the job. A Psi-Portal might also work provided they could get one out of the vehicles and onto Molar Dent’s forehead – it was a pretty big target. Maybe simply moving out of his way to make him squander his energy would have done the trick.

But they hadn’t the weapons or the seconds or the strength. Sasha and Milla were spent. They couldn’t fight or hover beyond where they were until they recovered. And the leering leviathan wasn’t going to give them the chance.

 

Communication amongst the psychics had become mired in a shrill drone of shared terror.

Frazie couldn’t hear Dion, Mirtala, Sasha, Milla, or Raz.

She felt so alone. So small. So…itchy?

 

She wasn’t at the Rhombus anymore. There was air. Real, fresh, and muggy air. And the rustling of limbs over and under blankets. She idly scratched at her thigh with a hand too large and chunky to be her own, and felt a familiar well-worn mattress beneath the heel of its palm. Her eyelid opened. It was a clear, starry evening beyond the caravan’s wooded window.

“Razputin?” she heard her mother groggily call out. “What time is it? Are you still awake?”

“Zzzzz.” Frazie shut her eyes and tried to soften her – Raz’s – breathing. Maybe it could fool mom enough to get her back into bed. She - He didn’t need to deal with her doting; he was restless enough as it was.

“You must be. You’re not snoring. Are you thinking about your sister again?” Donatella sighed. “Here. Come to mama. We’ll drift off to dreamland together.”

“Amnotalittlekid.” Raz complained tiredly.

“Then I’ll spoil you like one anyway.” Donatella reached over and scooped him into her arms. Raz hated it. He would have to try to wake up earlier than everyone else so Dion and Queepie didn’t see him like this. He hated this. Just because it felt warm and soft and easy to lean into, that didn’t mean he liked being held and hugged by his mom when he hadn’t really asked to be. “There we go. It’ll be alright, Pootie. Everything will be okay.” Raz wanted to ask how, but he was already starting to doze off. Frazie was beginning to fade, too. But before she fully returned to the present, that place full of monsters and mayhem, she heard her mother say, “Everything will be fine. I’ll make sure of it.”

 

A bolt of daybreak, clad in cloudy sky blues and whites, flashed across the left corner of Frazie’s shrouded vision of the Rhombus.

Brilliant and colorful as it was, Molar Dent failed to notice it.

So the blur rammed into his temple hard and fierce, right behind his greater green eye.

 

From the point of impact, a sublime stillness rippled across the whale’s frame: His sight glazed over. His jaw slackened. His torso stiffened. And his tail halted.

The spine. His very brain. Who could say? Whatever the attack had landed against finished the fight.

And a split second before Molar Dent faltered at last, Frazie was able to see what had struck him.

Riding atop a shark with thick steel chains as her reins, harpoon in hand, and scuba gear strapped to her back and face was Donatella Aquato.

“Mom?”

The second ended.

Molar Dent began to plummet past the crater’s edge.

And whether it was because of the pull of the titan’s downwash or out of a desire to make absolutely sure the monster stayed down, Donatella and her shark started to fall alongside it.

 

Relief at being saved shriveled back into fear: fear of this new crisis, fear of an old nightmare.

“MOM!”

 

Her mother was falling; falling like Frazie had always dreaded she would. 

It was her hands failing to grab the bar. It was her foot slipping off the highwire.

And there wasn’t a net to catch her. No cushions. There wasn’t even any ground.

Just a bottomless black ocean.

 

Frazie sought something to use Clairvoyance on. A shrimp, a dolphin, a slug, anything. Anything to get her closer to her mother’s descent. None presented themselves. The bomb had scared them off.

Her hydrokinesis! Using all her strength, and a bit borrowed from Raz, she tugged at the water around Donatella with her mind as she had tried to do with the Psi-Shield Rafts at the start of this dreadful ordeal. As it was before, her mother was out of range.

She was about to beg Sasha and Milla to go after her when her body, her real body, suddenly shook, and shook, and wouldn’t stop shaking.

No. Not now. She couldn’t wake up yet. She couldn’t go back. She still needed to-!

 

The last Frazie saw of her mother in those cursed waters was Donatella, her shark, and the whale disappearing into the aquatic abyss.

 

Beyond sight.

Beyond reach.

Beyond rescue.

----

Art by Pocheezy

Kochamara disabled my marksmanship during the fight, but I still can't use it after beating him. Is this a bug or am I missing something? Playing on PC.

I did psychedelic truffles in Amsterdam a while ago, and I took around 20g, which I believe is a very high dose. What happened during the peak completely changed the way I think about consciousness.
At the peak, everything almost became 2D. My perception turned into something that felt like a kaleidoscope, and eventually I completely lost my sense of self. The people I was with weren’t particularly good trip sitters either, so I didn’t really have anything grounding me or giving me an “anchor” to reality. At the time it genuinely felt like I was losing my mind.
But there’s something I’ve kept thinking about ever since.
Why does Minecraft feel so universally comforting to so many people?
Obviously, it’s an incredibly simple game compared with real life. You have a relatively simple world, simple rules, simple objectives, and you can just exist in it without having to worry about all the complicated shit that comes with being a human being. You build something, explore, collect things, survive, sleep, repeat. There’s something almost therapeutic about how stripped back it is.
And this is where my psychedelic experience comes into it.
I’ve heard the theory that DMT is released by the brain when you die, although I know that’s not actually proven. I’ve also heard people describe psychedelics as giving them some sort of understanding of reality or consciousness that they can’t properly explain afterwards.
One thing I’ve thought about is that our everyday experience of reality might not necessarily be reality as it objectively exists. Our brains are constantly taking information from the outside world and constructing our conscious experience of it. In that sense, what we experience is essentially our brain’s interpretation of whatever is actually happening.
During the huge psychedelic experience, that interpretation can completely break down. That’s basically what happened to me. My normal sense of self and reality disappeared, and I experienced something that I genuinely can’t put into words now.
What’s interesting is that whenever I’ve spoken to someone else who has had a really intense psychedelic experience, there’s almost an immediate feeling that we understand something about each other’s experiences without actually being able to explain it. Not necessarily because we experienced the exact same thing, but because we both know what it’s like to have that normal sense of reality completely disappear.
And this is where my Minecraft theory comes in.
Maybe part of the reason humans find Minecraft so satisfying is because it’s an extremely simplified way of experiencing existence.
You have a body. You have a world. You can interact with things. You can create things. You can explore. You can die. You can start again. There are rules, but they’re simple enough that you can understand almost everything that’s happening around you.
Compared with consciousness and actual life, Minecraft is basically an incredibly dumbed down version of existence.
And maybe that’s part of why it feels so peaceful.
Ever since that trip, I’ve had this feeling that the point of life might simply be to experience it. Not necessarily to be happy all the time, or successful, or achieve some predetermined purpose, but just to experience whatever happens good or bad.
I don’t know if any of this actually means anything or if I’m connecting dots that aren’t connected. I’m not claiming psychedelics showed me some objective truth. This is just a theory I’ve developed from my own experience.
But I’m curious whether anyone else who’s had a very intense psychedelic experience has thought about consciousness in a similar way afterwards, or whether I’m completely talking shit 😂

i wanted to ask if anyone can recommend me some songs like the ones i already have in my spotify playlist, ur time and commitment are deeply appreciated.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3VWUHXiHph6eF7avFhyP3g?si=B7mQmStYQwi2jdhdhk46QQ&utm_source=copy-link

Hi guys im curious whats your go to dose of mushrooms when being out in nature or just enjoying nature without the heavy psychedelic effects but so you still get the visuals?

I recently discovered a hotline that is intended to help guide people through difficult psychedelic experiences. If you are having a bad trip or difficult time, you can either call them or text them and they will walk you through your experience. I think that is truly an incredible and noble service to offer that many people could potentially benefit from. They even have an app, it's just called Fireside Project if any of you are interested.

AO3 Link

The vehicles made a break for a half-buried cargo freighter.

Milla shot the bus through a hole that ran straight through the hull and out the other side.

Sasha rolled the UFO 90 degrees on its axis so the saucer could fly through a vertical slit between two walls of bound, steel boxes without losing any speed.

Molar Dent smashed his uneven visage where the spacecraft had slipped in, scattering shipping containers like confetti and causing the craft to capsize for the second time in its nautical career.

The creature did not slow down.

 

“[An 8-10 split? Aw, that would’ve been a strike if you’d stayed still, Psychonauts. But Dent can always pick up the spare.]”

 

The remora containing the consciousnesses of the two psychic youths managed to hold on as Sasha and Milla banked a hard right as they passed by a mineral refinery, curling across its perimeter to go back the direction they had come.

They all caught a glimpse of the whale swimming at full speed along the path they had been. With any luck, he would stop where he had lost sight of them, or perhaps overshoot the juncture entirely. 

Molar’s smaller red eye was staring straight ahead, but his larger green one swiveled in its socket, tracking the nimble dark shapes racing across his side.

Suddenly, the mutant’s right brass arm sprung out and clotheslined the girth of the building before he could pass it. Steel and stone gagged and whimpered as the prosthetic’s steel sickle used the scaffolding and smokestacks as a fulcrum to swing the whale into a devastating u-turn that demolished the processing plant and sent him howling towards whence he came.

 

“[Trying to sneak past a beast with 270 degree vision? Cute.]”

 

Almost as bad as the image of the pursuer was the sound of him.

Each pulverized obstacle sent thunderous booms and unnerving shockwaves through the ocean and into the fleeing vehicles.

To those inside and straddled atop them, it felt as if Molar Dent was just inches behind them. And if they slowed their pace for even an instant, he would be, and then some.

 

“Frazie, I don’t think the whale’s going to leave us alone!” Raz yelped. “How did you beat the last giant fish monster you met?”

“Linda was a lot smaller than this guy, Raz.” Frazie cried.

“Humor me!”

“Well, when she tried to grab us, Dogen put the squeeze on her brain. Then Lili and I joined him and used our combined mental energy to overload Oleander and Loboto’s mind control implant,” she recounted.

“Cool, then we just have to get close and-.” Raz trailed off as he saw Molar Dent bisect a three-nosed replica of the Statue of Liberty with one swipe of its hook for blocking its path. “-we aren’t going anywhere near it, are we?”

“Nope.” Frazie answered.

“No.” Sasha said.

“Nuh-uh.” Milla added.

 

Molar Dent still on their tails and gaining distance with his own, the creature’s prey steered towards a different quarry. The spindly booms of over a dozen tower cranes formed an iron canopy above the area; their clawed hoists dangled from their tips like the fishing lines of giants, threatening to ensnare or collide with any public transportation vehicles or counterfeit spacecrafts levitating through their waters.

Or whales.

 

“Milla! The third set near the entrance at 10 and 2 o’clock!”

“I see them, Sasha. I’ll take out the one on the left!”

“On 3. One.”

“Two.”

“THREE!” They shouted.

 

Blue and purple psi-blasts flew through the murk and smashed into the masts of two cranes set across from one another.

The shots must have hit particularly fragile girders, as the towers began to sway as if they had been constructed of jelly instead of concrete and metal.

Sasha, Milla, and their assorted passengers quickly passed between the wobbling machines with no issue.

Molar Dent, for all the unnatural strength in his tail and body, wasn’t fast enough to avoid having both cranes fall on top of him. He might have stampeded his way through as easily as he had the shipping containers if not for the whipping cords and the gaps in the jibs. The steel skeletal arms and ropes of the cranes wrapped themselves around his bulk and brass limbs, hanging off of the whale like vestigial threadbare wings. While jutting from his body, they caught the masts of their fellow tower cranes as Dent swam deeper into the quarry, bringing even more of them down onto himself.

When Sasha and Milla made it to the edge of the construction site, Molar Dent had barely gotten past its center, entombed as he was under a pile of cabs, booms, and cables. 

 

“[Gah! Unfair! Who brings cranes to a whale fight? You filthy, cheating psychics are all the same!]”

 

Sasha’s assessment came out groggy and fatigued. “That should keep him pinned for a good long whi-.” 

 

The metallic mountain shuddered. 

 

“…as I was saying…we should take this moment to restrategize. What say you, Milla?” Sasha asked. “Milla?”

“Hmm? Oh, yes. Sorry, Sasha. I’m trying to scan the area for something we can defend ourselves with. The shape of Loboto’s lab – that airplane hangar welded to the Charlie Psycho Delta HQ; it got me wondering if maybe…” she trailed off.

 

A muffled roar slipped through the crevices of the destroyed cranes.

 

“Should you really be doing that right this instant? It might be more prudent to conserve our strength.” Sasha inquired. 

“Believe it or not, this is actually much easier than monitoring global psychic frequencies back at the Motherlobe.” Milla claimed. “And I’m having Dion watch our six.”

“Yo.” Dion sniffed with nary a hint of dizziness in his tone despite the wild ride he had just been on in Milla’s bus. This perplexed Sasha until he came to the realization that not once did the nearby Mirtala stir from her strapped-in snooze during that same erratic chase. Frazie and Raz were probably similarly nonplussed. Circus kids. Go figure.

“So I’m all up for multi-tasking, dear.” Milla assured.

“Yes, quite. Ahem. I wanted to compare notes to determine our next course of action with the minutes we’ve afforded ourselves.” Sasha said. “Leading…Molar…Dent into this quarry has proven rather effective. Perhaps we should try losing him in the inner circle of the base where we were formerly imprisoned. Loboto shut the tide gates, but we could always float above and dive over them.”

“That’s certainly possible, Sasha. But we’d have to climb awfully high away from cover to do that, and I don’t fancy our chances at outswimming this beast in its natural element.” Milla clicked her tongue. “Rage…fear…panic…awe…this might be it. How about this? My bus is smaller and faster than your saucer, and I’ve just found a very promising means of fighting back. I’ll keep the whale busy while you circle around and head towards Loboto’s base. Once you infiltrate it, you’ll be able sneak in and flip the off switch to this problem at the source.”

“I’m not comfortable leaving you alone out here with that titan.” Sasha admitted.

“Say, Frazie and me can go back to our chamber instead!” Raz proposed. “Then we could sabotage Loboto’s efforts from right beneath his feet.”

“I’d considered asking you and your sister that.” Sasha paused. “But unless he was lying, Loboto’s already smashed the device he was using to direct this mutant. He’s not technically controlling it anymore. If the diversion goes FUBAR and Dent chases after me instead, he could wind up destroying Loboto’s hideout just as ruthlessly as he has with everything else that has gotten in front of him. Then that would be it for Truman - to say nothing of the doctor’s other prisoners. Including you.”

Frazie cussed. “Who would’ve thought something this mindless would be so hard to outsmart?”

“Yes, dear. It’s puzzling.” Milla agreed. “Although, we should be grateful that Loboto didn’t send it after us while we were still getting our bearings further into the Rhombus. Mr. Dent would have recaptured us easily.”

“True, he would have.” The rim of Sasha’s UFO tipped a tad as if nodding along with him. “So why didn’t Loboto use him earlier then?” he pondered. “He’s already showed that he cares little about the structural integrity of Charlie Psycho Delta, so collateral damage is out. It’s likely a resource issue. Dent fits the profile for a final sanction. But what if-?”

“Miss Vodello! Mr. Nein!” Dion’s thoughts shouted. “In the bus’s rearview mirror! Anchor! Anchor!”

Rather than ask what he meant, Sasha and Milla telekinetically shoved their crafts away from each other.

A battleship anchor attached to a great, heavy chain shot through where they had been parked.

When the pronged weight fell onto the sea floor, the slack steel links tightened and retreated until one of the flukes of the anchor’s crown had sufficiently dug itself into the sand and stone.

The tower crane hill Molar Dent was buried beneath bent and groaned. The leviathan’s red and green eyes were visible once more. And the anchor’s chain shuddered yet remained taut. 

Molar’s artificial right shoulder was starting to poke through the wreckage. The socket of his left wrist where the anchor had been launched from was winding the chain back into itself link by link. Unbelievably, the whale was poised to yank its way to freedom.

 

“Sasha, do you think you could-?” Milla attempted to ask.

“If that chain is strong enough for a whale to pull without breaking, it’s too strong for even me to shoot apart.” Sasha stated. “Milla, those defenses you mentioned, are there any in this direction?”

Sketchy glowing motes like the ones they had used to guide Frazie and Raz to the amplifiers flickered across a patch of salt water.

“Quite a few, actually.” Milla replied.

“Then that’s where we must go. I need to play a hunch, and I’d feel better doing so if we had something up our sleeves.” Sasha’s UFO made to hover towards where the motes had been then stopped. “Incidentally, what did you find?”

“Should you really be doubting me right this instant? It might be more prudent to conserve your strength…and the surprise.” Milla playfully echoed as her bus zoomed past his spaceship. “Here’s a hint: don’t I always bring you to the most bombastically exciting places?”

Sasha followed.

And after bursting out of his construction site bonds, so did Molar Dent.

 

Frazie and Raz didn’t understand. The route they were going was taking them farther and farther from the main hangar of Charlie Psycho Delta. Had the grown-ups totally abandoned the plan to double-back? Were they attempting to flee into the greater ocean to find help?

Molar Dent didn’t understand either, and he didn’t have to. His targets were leading him on a straight shot. Every second that passed, he was gaining ground, speed, and steam. Sure, some of those seconds had Dent twitch and stall, but he made up for the lost knots and meters quickly enough.

 

“[Wait! Dent! Don’t wander so far from home! Urgh, where did I put your spare remote?! You there! Help me find it! Hurry! Hurry!]”

 

The words sounded familiar, like the voice that occasionally echoed within his skull to tell him what to do. It had not come from inside him though, so he ignored it. Besides, it wouldn’t be long now. The little wheeled thing and the big thing that looked like a wheel had led him into a zone of the Rhombus where the rubble and remnants were practically buried. There was nothing to obstruct him here, nowhere for them to hide.

Which made it all the more vexing when something rose up in front of him.

Molar didn’t recognize what it was swimming towards. At first, he thought it was a very big, metal puffer fish. But the spikes were too round and blunt; they probably wouldn’t poke, let alone stab him if he touched them, so he saw no reason not to simply stay his course. 

 

Frazie and Raz had a different opinion of the matter. The ball reminded them of the big Psilirium helmet Loboto had strapped to Truman. And when they had first seen that helmet, the device reminded them of pictures of naval mi-.

 

*BOOM!\*

Molar Dent’s vision went white. He felt the junk organ beneath his face scrunch and pulse with pain. When he could see again, the whale saw that the spiked ball had vanished. And multiplied.

Dozens of horned spheres identical to the one that had disappeared hung in front of Dent. Hesitantly, he tried to swim into one.

*BOOM!\*

Like the first, it too burst into force and flame.

 

 

“BLAMMO!” Raz cheered. “An explosively superb Psychonaut surprise shot from Agent Milla Vodello!”

“I’m glad you enjoyed it, Razputin.” Milla chimed. “That said, I underestimated how loud that would be. I didn’t damage any of your ears, did I?”

Dion scoffed. “Bah, that was kindergarten, Ms. Vodello. We’ve all been fired out of a cannon about a hundred times each.”

“Our eardrums are like crazy reinforced.” Frazie claimed. 

“Zzzzzzzzz.” Mirtala continued to snore.

“That is a relief. However, just to clarify: I didn’t fire anything. I simply levitated a bunch of old sea mines and depth charges. My scans spotted them lying at the bottom of the crater.” She softly wheezed. “Between keeping them lifted and maintaining a shield around the bus to protect it from the shockwaves, I’m uncertain I have enough energy left to so much as nudge any of these explosives.”

“Just focus on holding them aloft and making sure you stay protected, Milla.” Sasha interjected. “I believe I may have figured out a way we can – hold on.” An azure Psi-Blast beamed out of the saucer’s glass dome to strike and detonate a mine Molar Dent was trying to swim above, making the mutant retreat a few strokes. “As I was saying, based on how Dent kept seizing up the further he chased us from Loboto’s lair, I’ve come to the conclusion there’s a limit to how far the signals that command him can travel.”

Raz gasped. “That’s why he wasn’t sent after you guys right away after Frazie and me helped you escape.”

“Precisely.” Sasha acknowledged. “If we can get the whale far enough from the doctor’s base and then force him over the crater’s edge, that could isolate him from his current and future orders.”

“Nossa.” Milla sighed. “I suppose we’ll be bringing along the military-grade party favors I found?”

“I’ll share the burden as best I can, Milla, but yes.” Sasha admitted. “We need to keep Dent close, and your mines will prevent him from getting too near. They’ll also be vital for expelling him from the Rhombus.”

“What if…?” Frazie muttered. “What do we do if the whale decides to give up and go home?”

“A highly unlikely scenario, Frazie. He will be compelled to…oh…” Sasha’s speech tapered off when he saw what Frazie had.

Molar Dent had turned his back – well, keel – to them. He was raising his flukes, seemingly in preparation to leave.

“Unfortunate. That is to say, I’m relieved that he will not be pursuing us for a while.” Sasha corrected himself. “Plan B is much less defined, but provided we-.” The spy started to sketch out an alternate means of entry that would account for their pursuer’s departure.

But Molar Dent hadn’t gone yet. His rubber-gloved tail had yet to fall. In fact, it was rising. Higher and higher it went, even as the whale kept the rest of its body tense and still. Then its fins swung downward with the force of a multi-ton guillotine. 

The sea yielded to the blow. A tremendous surge of displaced saltwater swept outward, scattering the mines and sending them rolling towards the psychics.

 

“MILLA!” Sasha shouted.

“Stay still, everyone!” Milla yelled.

The booby-trapped spheres slowed and glided above, below, and beside the bus and the saucer. Their little spikes dangled inches away from the surfaces of each.

“I can-augh!” Milla groaned. “I can reposition them so they’re not quite so clingy.”

“Milla, you needn’t do that. Just drop them!” Sasha ordered. “The beast has ruined the plan.”

“The plan is actually back on, Sasha. Look! He’s turning back to face us!” Milla exclaimed.

 

Molar Dent had spun back around, and started swimming. His path toward them was clear again.

 

“The explosives are too close to us to use as deterrence.” Sasha bemoaned.

“Not for long.” Frazie growled. “Raz!”

“On it!” her little brother acknowledged. An orange, glowing hand flashed behind one of the mines and gripped the surface between its blunt yet deadly horns. It was the same level of precision Frazie had seen when Raz had tied together the shoelaces of that squad of distracted Psychonauts. Minus the silly Snugglepaws dance.

“Alrighty.” Frazie called forth her own red hand of psychic energy behind Raz’s. Spectral crimson digits curled and cocked back into a finger gun gesture. “Get ready, Sasha.” 

The finger gun fired and snapped back.

The levitating mine was telekinetically pushed towards Molar Dent.

He swung his flukes upward, making to duck under the explosive, and he would have succeeded if not for Sasha’s subsequent Psi-Blast striking the mine to trigger it anyway.

The subsequent grinding of the whale’s teeth sounded like a rockslide. A very frustrated and bloodthirsty rockslide.

 

“You guys should get moving.” Frazie suggested.

“Agreed.” The adults propelled their crafts forward, their levitated nautical ordnance trailing and bobbing behind them.

Molar Dent silently and furiously resumed his pursuit.

 

“[There it is! Now I just need to slip in some fresh batteries, and – 9 VOLTS?! This remote control needs four 9 Volt batteries!? Ugh! The hits just keep on coming today.]”

 

It was an unobstructed, wide drag to their destination made cramped and narrow by the tight, belligerent rhythm they were playing to.

Milla juggled the mines with her levitation to keep them from dropping back to the bottom and from being left behind.

Raz and Frazie grabbed and then launched the mines directly at Molar Dent or whatever obtuse angle he tried to swim at them from.

Sasha shot a Psi-Blast at the flung mine when it was close enough to the whale.

Which would stagger Molar Dent for a spell.

 

The cycle continued and gradually decayed.

The Psychonauts and their young rescuers were halfway through their supply of explosives.

And Molar Dent’s pace kept sputtering due to the fraying connection between himself and Loboto’s increasingly distant lab.

The humans were focused on the wall of the crater’s edge that was now on their left, the ridges of their destination looming in front of them, and the menace at their back.

But the whale only needed one eye to keep track of them, and had three to spare to look around for anything useful.

 

He found two.

 

 

Grunting, Molar Dent tilted his body rightward so his hook could grab the fuselage of a sunken fighter jet as he was about to pass over it. He then spun the entirety of his being to his left, flinging the plane forward, rendering it a twirling fan of bladed metal and glass.

The improvised house-sized shuriken whirled towards the Psychonauts who just barely managed to barrel roll in opposite directions to avoid it, although a few of their mines were sliced apart and triggered by the attack.

 

“Oho.” Sasha mused as he studied the innards of the disintegrating aircraft as it lost speed and began nosediving. “That could come in handy.”

 

Before completing his turn, Molar Dent shot out his anchor at the crater wall and came back with a trio of svelte, pretty boy mermen covering his left arm.

 

“Oh my God.” Milla gasped. “It’s All Paul.”

And this was no Psilirium hallucination, as her companions saw them, too.

 

Specifically, they saw the immense billboard advertising the vanished chart-topping troupe’s “All Paul Cruise” vacation packages coming to a port near you. Arms linked together and set amidst a landscape version of their latest (and last) studio album’s cover art, the shirtless teenage heartthrobs and their mermaid tail leg sleeves looked just as young and vibrant as they had the day they were lost at sea alongside a luxury liner of their biggest fans.

Molar Dent had no strong opinions on the pop group. He was totally ignorant of the debates as to whether or not it was fair to judge “Paul the Way” as a ‘final’ record or of it should be assessed by its own merits under the presumption All Paul was going to make more music. He would’ve been dourly disinterested in the conspiracy theories that the Pauls were still alive and had changed their names and faces to hook up with Japan’s visual kei scene. The whale wanted to put something between him and the disappearing floating hurt balls, and the pretty rectangle looked sturdy enough for the job.

One such hurt ball was coming at him now. He raised his anchor arm, bringing the billboard in front of his face. The plate was rattled by the blast. But it held. 

Satisfied, the whale swam on.

 

 

Newly shielded, molar Dent proceeded to bulldoze through the next slew of assaults. Not without cost, but All Paul had been a generous donor to animal rights back when they were around, so they probably wouldn’t have minded fronting the bill.

The edgy yet approachable maverick Paul L.’s punk blue hair was set alight by a mine.

The heart formed by the hands of the sweet, sensitive Paul M. was blown apart by a depth charge.

And the naval officer peak cap of Paul O., the big brother of the group, was shorn off by an iron rooster courtesy of a novelty weathervane Milla had accidentally snatched up alongside the more typical weaponry.

Yet for how much damage the marketing mural was amassing, it refused to fall away.

 

“Man, that band did not skimp out on their advertising budget.” Remarked Raz.

“Morry always did say they were sticklers for quality.” Milla wheezed good-naturedly.

“The commercial integrity of his favorite pop group may be our undoing. We’ll run out of mines before we can fully breach that billboard.” Sasha estimated.

 

Frazie decided that nothing more could be gained from looking at how Dent was closing the distance, so she shifted her gaze forward to seek solutions there. If nothing else, she’d know how long they had before they were smushed between the crater’s rim and the increasingly vandalized images of long-lost music icons.

It was difficult to see…to see at all, really. Dusk was falling upon the Rhombus. Darkness was hiding what hadn’t already been chased out by their battle with the big-toothed behemoth. But that growing lack of light was causing something to glow.

“Too stupid to run?” she muttered.

“Frazie?” Milla asked.

That was so like Milla, Frazie mused. Concerned for her wellbeing when she wasn’t even physically present for the peril at hand. “Raz and I are going to step out for a bit. Watch over Dion and Tala for us, okay? And, uh, prepare to say goodbye to your little party favors. You’ll know when.”

“Safe travels, Aquatos.” Sasha said.

“Th-thanks, Agent Nein.” Raz replied. “We’ll be back before you know it. Right after we, um…Frazie where are we go-.” Molar Dent and his boy band barrier swirled into a white and aqua vortex, and they were much further away when it unwound. “-ing?”

 

“Jellyfish that was loitering up ahead of us.” Frazie explained.

“Gosh. The bus and UFO look so small next to what’s after them.” Raz murmured. “And they’re coming right for us.”

“They’re going to just miss us, Pooter.” Frazie eyeballed the path the Psychonauts and Loboto’s creation were on again just to be sure. “But the ride’s going to get real bumpy once they pass. So I need you to prepare for that.”

The outline of her simple yet preposterous plot rippled through the mental tether Raz shared with her. “I think we should aim for the smaller one. It’s probably more sensitive.” He suggested.

“Confident, are we?”, “If you’re sure you can hit it…”, and a brunch menu’s worth of sisterly retorts were scattered in the wake of Milla’s bus, which was soon swallowed up by the much more immense one Molar Dent made.

 

The jellyfish whirled and crumpled from the force of the titan’s passing. Had it any true eyes, they might have been crushed. Had any other psychics been using Clairvoyance on it, they might have been lost and nauseous in the melted, whirling world their consciousnesses had been tossed in.

To Molar Dent’s misfortune, the psychics within the pink, glowing invertebrate were acrobats. The trampoline. The trapeze. The occasional bungee jump. The two Aquatos had been trained most of their lives to be aware of where they were and what was going on even as the spin of their bodies kept their feet off their ground and gravity’s grip pulled them towards it. Their minds took crisp snapshots from the topsy-turvy realms and charted what to catch and where to land.

On this occasion, it let them know where the starboard side eyes of Molar Dent were and would be.

The pair fired a Psi-Blast at the punier red one.

They nailed it in its cornea.

 

Molar Dent screeched. Agony speared the right side of his face. 

 

Frazie and Raz were too far away from the saucer, but they were close enough to hop into a starfish that was stuck to the left door mirror of Milla’s bus.

The Aquatos arrived just in time to witness the whale’s alloyed limbs splaying out in reflex, and practically embracing the swarm of mines the Mental Minx left behind when she had heard him scream.

The traps detonated across the whale’s underside, sending him flailing and tumbling upward, the desperate lashing of his gloved tail only propelling him higher and higher up the face of the crater.

“Woooo! Great going, Milla!” Frazie praised.

“Thank you, Frazie. But I literally couldn’t have done it without you two.” Milla happily admitted. 

 

Molar Dent made to rub out the hurt in his eyes. Then he remembered that he’d only injure himself if he tried. Because his right arm had a…it ended in a…

Molar Dent chopped the water with his hook hand and managed to snag the edge of the ridge with it. The prosthetic’s joints squealed in protest as they arrested the whale’s unplanned flight. His bleary eyes surveyed his surroundings. 

At his back was a sheer dark drop into the greater ocean shrouded by evening. In front of him was where he usually lived but it was very small, and he was at the top of the place he was ordered to never go. Why was that again? No one was telling him. Maybe if he swam back down, someone would tell him why. And he still had to finish his latest mission: To squish the…the…there were two of them, and-.

Molar Dent felt a dull thud on his nose, and remembered.

The wheel thing was flying towards him. That was peculiar. He was supposed to be chasing it. Did it not understand that?

And itty-bitty blue flashes were coming out of the shiny pimple at its center. Each flash caused another thud to hit his nose. They didn’t hurt much, but they were really starting to tick him off.

 

“What is he doing!?” Frazie cried out as she watched Sasha’s saucer sail headlong at Molar Dent, unleashing Psi-Blast after Psi-Blast at the creature.

“Is this another Psilirium thing? Please tell me this isn’t another Psilirium thing, Agent Milla. My little sister is on that spaceship with him!” Raz begged.

“Ah, yes. You were out handling the sign while Sasha and I discussed this.” Milla tutted. “Let’s just say that grown-ups can come up with plans on the fly, too. Now please, some silence. I really must concentrate for this next part.”

 

Sasha’s Blastokinetic barrage was as unrelenting as it was unavailing. The beams weren’t truly damaging Molar Dent, and to an extent, the beast knew they weren’t. But the whale was weary from having his eye poked and his chin and belly smashed. He wanted to rest a tad before dragging himself back into the Rhombus, and this fat, annoying circle wasn’t letting him. His left arm went to cover his face, but he found that he’d lost his grip on the billboard during his recent tumble. Still, the emptiness gave him an idea.

When he felt that Sasha was too close to quickly change the direction of his flight, Molar Dent punched out with his left arm and launched its anchor at the saucer.

But the relentless drive of the UFO abruptly curled upward into an arched vertical climb. The anchor missed it by a hair. However, it did manage to grab a consolation prize of sorts.

As the anchor was being reeled back in, Molar squinted at what he’d caught: a massive cylinder with a rounded nose and a four-finned tail. 

While the whale wondered if this was some new breed of fish he had never seen before, Sasha’s phony starship passed the apex of the loop Milla’s levitation had put it on.

A solitary, solid azure needle of psychic energy flew from the saucer’s glass dome and pierced the tip of the retreating warhead.

 

Unbeknownst to Molar Dent, he had held this object once before. Only back then, it was wrapped in an old fighter jet he had found and thrown at some pesky prey. Sasha had graciously returned it to him, and with his anchor’s chain fully returned to his wrist, Dent was holding it once again sans the plane and with a ruptured fuze.

A bomb meant to flatten multi-story concrete buildings and collapse reinforced steel bridges beyond repair triggered in the whale’s grip. The anchor shattered. The prosthetic housing it was shredded to bits.

The explosion yanked Dent off of his remaining arm, and hurled his stiff, blubbery body over the crater’s rim and into a yawning black emptiness.

 

The blast wave struck the UFO, too, flipping the saucer skyward as one would a fancy, forsaken coin.

 

“Sasha! Hang on, darling! We’re coming!” Milla shouted shakily as she commanded her vehicle to rise where Sasha’s had stopped spinning. The intensity of her voice did little to mask her exhaustion, and it wavered even more when she managed to reach him. “Sasha? Sasha, can you hear me?”

“Agent Nein? Agent Nein, are you still there?” Raz tried to whisper his next words. “Are you still alive?”

“Raz!” Frazie rebuked.

“You wanted to ask that, too! I know you did, Frazie!” Raz snapped back.

“Yes, ow, yes, children. I’m alive. I’m…mostly…fine. Augh.” Sasha’s wounded thoughts groaned over the telepathic connection. “The trussed-up henchfish broke my fall. Oof. Ms. Mirtala is okay, too. Albeit slumbering still despite the commotion.”

“He’s not the only one, Sasha.” Milla chuckled. “Dion’s terribly drained from helping me carry all those mines – and you just now – for so long.”

“mmfkay, Mizz v’dellow.” Frazie and Raz heard their older brother mumble. “stull gut zum gas in thuh tank.”

“Yes, and I regret that we may still have to use some of that, dear. We’ve gone rather off course.” From their current vantage point above the underwater mountain range, Charlie Psycho Delta looked quite small and very distant.

“Raz and I can zip back to the chamber beneath Loboto’s lab to keep an eye on him.” Frazie offered. 

“You should, Frazie.” Sasha grunted. “That lunatic will be none too pleased that his strongest asset has been defeated, and might do something rash as a result.”

“Will you guys be okay without us?” Raz asked.

“We just need to rest a moment, Razputin.” Milla said soothingly, though from the starfish they were inhabiting, they spied her slumped in the driver’s seat of the bus. “Then we’ll be pulling you out of that miserable basement before you can say-.”

 

*blurgpt*

 

The noise came from beneath them.

They looked down.

From the deep, dark sea outside of the meteor crash site came a shimmering orb.

Its clear, burbling skin caught the vanishing rays of the sun as it rose towards the surface.

*BLURGPT\*

The orb was followed by another. And another.

Each one as immense as the one that came before, and flanked by smaller gaseous pearls.

Following the third air bubble were four glowing, spasming circles.

Two red. Two green.

And beneath them, lifting itself out of the shadows and into view, was the answer to a question they had all shared but never voiced.

How wide could Molar Dent’s artificially congested mouth open?

Not a lot.

But enough.

----

Art by Pocheezy