Holy heck, I haven't touched this fic in nearly a decade! Most of the people who were ever Following it probably haven't even visited this site in years, meaning they won't get notified of this update since you now have to go out of your way to opt in to being told that a story you said you wanted updates on has in fact been updated…(Seriously, who the heck thought that was a good idea?!) But, let this be a testament to the fact that I will always finish what I start eventually, whether it gets seen by the people who were there at the start or not. I hope to finish up the "A Cold Reception" portion in a couple more chapters, so we'll see how that goes, but either way, know that this was never forgotten.

It wasn't bitterly cold just yet, and Wilson quickly estimated the days - there had been 20 of summer and 16 of winter in the first world; if it was six or seven days of summer, and the ratio was the same, that would mean…four or five days of winter. No need to settle down or even go to extremes for winter survival gear, he concluded. If anything, my time would probably be best spent searching for materials as though it were still summer.

Of course, he would still have to watch out for freezing. It just wasn't so urgent now - his heat stone and earmuffs would probably suffice if he was smart about how he used them.

He checked the divining rod, but it didn't indicate anything, so he chose a random direction he hadn't yet been in and started walking.

The day was over alarmingly quickly, and dusk, when it set in, was cold. Wilson found nothing of interest or real use for a long time, and was just beginning to worry as, simultaneously, the cold managed to penetrate his meager defenses, and he came upon a touchstone.

Wilson ran, almost tripping over himself to activate the stone. He hadn't had one available in a long time, and having an insurance against death, especially in a world with more hazards than the last, was a tremendous relief. And, as had been the case in the first world, the stone was surrounded by four staked pig heads! He could now quickly have pig skin for a helmet and, hopefully, an umbrella.

He also noticed a couple of logs and a few bundles of grass scattered on the ground near the stone - just enough for a campfire. How convenient! Wilson thought, surprised and pleased. If I die in winter, I'll have an immediate source of heat. "Thank you!" he called aloud as he made a campfire from his own materials, hoping Maxwell could hear him. "That was very gentlemanly of you!" Of course, he was mocking his captor, not sincerely thanking him, but a free fire if he died was an added relief. He started one even as he thought this, to push back the cold that was eating into him.

As if in response to Wilson's call, the clouds thickened, and the snow started coming down in sheets - had it been summer, it would have been a thunderstorm, and Maxwell could have set things around Wilson on fire. As it was, though, he apparently couldn't break the rules, and not even a trace of thunder or lightning crossed the sky. Wilson couldn't help but smirk.

It also seemed that it couldn't snow frogs. An extra hazard only for the summer, a counterbalance to the one of winter, Wilson thought. Clever. Too bad for him, I have his number.

He checked the divining rod as he warmed his heat stone. Still nothing. This would take more exploration. For now, once the stone was nice and hot, he ran back to his alchemy engine to make a hammer.

~o~

It wasn't until the next day, after several stops to keep his body temperature up, that Wilson remembered that staked pigs didn't just mean pig skin, they also meant sticks - each stake that the hammer smashed gave him two saplings' worth of twig-like splinters. And of course, the heads themselves had exactly what Wilson needed: There was the one skin that made up the head, and the second that stuffed the head and made it rotund. In total, one touchstone platform gave him eight saplings' worth of twigs and eight pig skins.

Now he just needed silk.

I can't wait for that one spider nest to grow, killing off the spiders inside every day, one or two at a time, Wilson thought; I don't have time for that. I need to survive winter, yes, but not that urgently - what I really need is to keep moving.

Still, he made his way back to the spider nest. Along the way, he saw the one Beefalo again, and thought, If I make a razor, I can take its wool, but since it's alone and far away from any other Beefalo, killing it should be easy…maybe I'll get lucky and one of its horns will be strong enough to make use of. I can always use the herd I saw earlier to get the rest of the wool I'd need… Since winter would be so short, a single Beefalo hat would definitely be adequate for keeping himself warm even in unfavorable circumstances, especially combined with his beard, which had just started to grow out again.

He still had to make several stops, burning trees and other plants he passed with torches to keep the cold away. Unlike campfires, wildfires, even those he started on purpose, could hurt him, so it wasn't ideal, but since he had to keep moving, making campfires every few minutes would have been impractical. Besides, with ash, I can make salve, and with charcoal, I can make a crock pot, among other things, he thought; I don't need a base, but being able to make stuff should help stave off insanity, which will help since even the summer days are short. With that in mind, he made sure to grab every bit of ash and charcoal he made as he burned his way through the world, after using his new twigs to make another ax. Even with the new variables, the efficiency with which Wilson worked felt mechanical; it didn't even occur to him how much more relaxed he already felt.

When at last he got there, there was only one spider in the nest, and only its meat was salvageable. This won't work, Wilson thought. I need…what do I need? Where did I used to go when I needed silk? A swamp, that was where he'd gotten most of his silk - with the plethora of spider nests combined with the many tentacles that attacked anything that got close, silk practically farmed itself. The other terrains have proved to be here so far; there's no reason to think there aren't any swamps. I need to find one.

Unfortunately, that put him back in the position of wandering aimlessly with no idea of where he might be going. When there was literally uncharted territory all around him, picking a direction was difficult.

Night fell again, and Wilson lit a campfire. He was running out of wood and grass; even if grass wasn't a limited resource, he still had to gather it. Don't go too fast, he told himself. Remember to gather whatever you need to survive; exploration comes second. But he wanted out of here so badly…

When the next day dawned, it was already about midwinter cold; summer's midpoint had been as hot as before, so it stood to reason that the temperatures were the same for winter as well. Winter is still shorter than summer, he thought. Good. Although…summer will probably mean more frogs. Neither season was ideal anymore.

With no better ideas, he started exploring the confused terrain, picking up all the resources he came across - including the rocks of both sharpnesses that were scattered everywhere, until he had too many of both. I won't be building stone walls, he thought once he'd filled his pockets; I don't need to gather loads of rocks. This should be more than enough. He dropped some as he kept walking.

The ground beneath him turned forest-y, and mist started lapping at his ankles. He'd only seen its like once in the other world, in the less-formal graveyard; sure enough, he quickly found burial mounds, marked and unmarked. Is there a pig village here? he wondered. A king? Gold has so many uses…Though he knew it wasn't a good idea, he took out his shovel and turned up a few graves, even as the shadows took advantage of this savage behavior to drain away his sanity. Trinkets were what he mostly found, but a red gem and a blue gem also came up. When he couldn't risk hurting his head anymore, he stopped. But, remembering the other resource the graveyard had provided so long ago, he walked around in the fog, peering down to try and see the ground. Soon enough, he found a lump of gold. Yes.

It was well past dusk by the time Wilson had finished searching the foggy area, and six gold nuggets were his reward. He thought about the things he could use them for as he started another campfire, cooking a few carrots to eat so that they'd heal him more, the stinging on his hands a constant reminder of the scratches he'd gotten from the thorn bushes. Miner hat, bird cage, science contraptions…actually, a lot of the things I'd use gold for are better for settlements than moving forward. I could use it for better tools, I guess…I'd need more twigs, but tools that last three times longer are worth double the twigs, considering how limited twigs are.

Night came and went, and was it already shorter than the previous night had been? It was difficult to say; in any case, it was still dangerously cold. With the graveyard marked on his map, Wilson continued in the direction he'd been going, hoping to stumble across something; not too long after, he reached the shore. Left or right? he wondered. Right, he decided - it was in the direction away from his base camp, such as it was, and moving outward would be best.

~o~

Following the shoreline, Wilson decided, was the surest way to find a swamp, even if there might be an easier way of doing it. He was running out of resources by the time he had to stop for the night again, but the ground beneath him had changed twice; surely, a swamp would happen eventually. He was in a savanna now, and grass was plentiful; he made sure to gather as much of it as he could while sticking close to the shoreline.

He kept walking the next day, not checking his map until dusk; when he did, was concerned to see that the land appeared to be turning back in on itself, as though he was following the coast of a peninsula. When night came, his map told him he was almost back where he'd been the middle of the previous day.

That's a good chunk of land outlined for me, he told himself, trying to find a positive to the wasted time. Once I'm more prepared to handle whatever adversity I may have to deal with, I can walk through that area dead-center with the rod out, and be certain whether or not there are any more mysterious things there. For surely, the rod's range extended further than the boundary of the space he'd just circumnavigated.

It was definitely already warmer out than it had been the previous day when morning dawned, though the snow was still coming down hard and the blue tint of winter still lingered. Wilson kept walking, hoping not to get too far away from anything useful. When he passed through an area that would have been covered in green grass were it not for the snow, he took a bit of a detour to scrounge up some carrots to keep him going. Carrots, it seemed, were his only readily available source of food now. Of course.

A forest was where he next stopped for the night, and it was as he was cutting down trees to make a fire that he realized the hounds still hadn't come for him. It's been at least ten days, probably one or two more, he thought as the all-consuming darkness swallowed the world once again, huddling by his fire. It didn't take them this long to come after me when I was first taken from my home. Are they simply…not coming? On the one hand, that would be helpful, as the hounds could get very difficult to handle, but on the other hand, it meant no fangs, so no sewing kits or blow darts. Maxwell giveth, and Maxwell taketh away.

Bastard.

The sun rose as abruptly as ever, but equally abrupt was the sudden change from snowfall to rainfall the moment day broke. The blue filter over everything was gone, and the snow that had been piled up everywhere and piling higher a moment before was suddenly melting under the deluge of water. It was cold rain, but not so horribly cold that it would pose a danger.

Getting up and scooping up the ash from his quickly-extinguished fire, Wilson quickly did some math in his head as he resumed walking, taking off his severely worn-out earmuffs as he did. That was, what, four days of winter? Five? Just as I predicted. Even so, summer and winter had both come and gone in a little more than half the time it would normally have taken summer to pass, which strangely made everything feel more urgent somehow.

Following the shoreline further, Wilson soon found himself in a thick forest, the kind where mushrooms grew in bulk. He still didn't have a crock pot, so they were mostly useless for now, but he made a mental note every time he saw one - mushrooms made good meatball sauce. More importantly, spider nests were common in these kinds of forests, so he eyed the ground closely as he passed, searching for the sticky residue that surrounded the webby lumps. Oddly, though, he didn't find any.

Before much longer, frogs began to fall from the sky yet again. Had the precipitation stopped even once since winter had started? It was hard to say, but Wilson didn't think so. In any case, he was almost grateful for the lack of spiders now - it made dodging the frogs a bit easier to not also have to dodge patches of sticky webbing.

Night fell too soon - the frogs were still falling, and the forest was still thick. Worse, Wilson didn't have enough materials to maintain torches, so though he had to keep moving or get crowded by frogs, he also had to use a fire-saving trick that had gotten him in trouble more than once: using torches sparingly, letting the darkness consume him until he heard the rasp of the night monster and then pulling it out to scare the beast away. He still hadn't actually seen whatever it was that tore at him with huge, vicious teeth when he was in darkness for too long, but it seemed to flee the moment light happened. Still, the darkness, the rain, and the repeated roar of the night monster tore at Wilson's mind.

When at last day broke, leaving him with only half a torch, Wilson decided to take out the divining rod again. To his alarm, it detected something, vibrating at the second level. But was the mysterious item ahead of him, or behind him? Not sure how much good it would do, he checked his map, and discovered that he had already turned back in on himself once again, the thick forest being another peninsula. But then surely, the thing is within that range? he thought, opening his eyes and turning to his right to head for the center. But the rod lost energy the further he went, until it was indicating nothing at all.

Scowling, dripping wet, almost fed up, Wilson turned back around and returned to where he'd been before, then continued following the coast. Here, at least, the device was beeping and humming enough to prove something was nearby, but the pitch only increased very slightly as he kept on.

Then, shortly after the too-early dusk fell, the sight of a cluster of lumpy towers met Wilson's eye.

Alarmed, Wilson pocketed the device and proceeded slowly. Just a little ways ahead, the land jutted away from the forest he'd been following and into the water, in what looked like a relatively narrow land bridge…and the bride was covered in 3-tiered spider nests. There were at least half a dozen of them, and it looked like a few tier-1 nests were interspersed between the bigger ones.

Once he was close enough to confirm that he'd assessed the situation correctly, Wilson stopped dead. Black shapes were already scuttling around among the white towers, but beyond them, it looked like the land opened up again, into what seemed to be a field.

Well, Wilson thought faintly, I found silk.

Curse you, Maxwell.