First things first, Wilson thought: I need to deal with these machines.

Even underground, derelict and broken, similar foes had been a nightmare to contend with; out in the open, with the sun, they might be less so, but a stiff breeze blew some of the cold rain into Wilson's face and reminded him that winter would be here in a day. It would, of course, be too much to hope for that the cold would have any effect on the metal monsters, and with only a spear and a helmet, he was far from equipped to deal with any serious threats.

With a sigh, Wilson turned his back. Back to home base, he decided. If nothing else, farming silk on his side of the bridge might prove helpful. When he closed his eyes and accessed his mental map, he was relieved to see that the location of the wooden thing was unmistakeable, so he would never have a hard time finding it again. Even so, the fact that it attracted his homing device might prove irksome, as he wouldn't be able to tell if there was a completely different thing worth looking for in the vicinity.

As he made his way back to the spider bridge, he reflected on the fact that he had no way of knowing how many strange objects he was looking for. Were there more on this side of the bridge? On his base's side? How long would this search take? Still bitter about the fact that three pre-prepared patches of farmland existed two hostile landscapes away from where he'd chosen to make his base, Wilson's grip on his umbrella tightened. I just want to leave, he thought, though he didn't give Maxwell the satisfaction of hearing him say it out loud.

Night came and went, and Wilson found himself stumbling through the spider dens in the dark of night, forced to wear his mining helmet and thus face the annoying creatures completely unprotected. One managed to surprise him with a bite, but he got through alive, at least, which was a relief - even with a touchstone, dying in the middle of a cluster of spider dens would leave all his possessions almost impossible to retrieve, including the metal potato thing.

Come morning, everything was cold. The rain was still pouring, and redbirds were still flying by, but winter would arrive after just one more day. Near his base, Wilson heard that one lone Beefalo he'd noticed before make the unmistakeable sound of a mating call. No one around to hear you, Wilson thought, and felt strangely sad, as it dawned on him that he hadn't seen another human in…how long had it been?

Pushing the thought from his mind, he regrouped at his base. He'd carried a few of the thorn bushes he'd dug up in his pocket, and carefully extracted one to light in his fire pit. Warmth and light exploded, and Wilson sorted his inventory out carefully, stowing the metal potato thing away in the chest with the other weird objects. That wooden thing looked too big to move, he thought, and he sighed, sitting down by his fire, umbrella over his head. I might need to move everything over there. The wooden thing, the farmland…it would make so much more sense to have a base on that side of the bridge. Winter would make crops a little tricky to grow, but then again, they would grow much faster than normal due to the near-nonstop rainfall during summer.

Blinking, Wilson refocused: he was trying to get out, not build a home for himself. In fact, viewed that way, the farmland was useless. I need to find the things and leave, he told himself firmly, and he stood up. His heat stone was toasty hot, night had fallen in full, and his beard reached his ankles; winter may have been coming, but he wasn't going to sit and wait.

Donning his mining helmet, he checked his map, turned away from both the area he'd been exploring before and the place where he'd started, and began walking.

Come morning, of course, the world was blue, and the rain changed to snow. In a way, that was welcome, since it meant he didn't need an umbrella anymore and so was able to pull out his homing device. It indicated nothing, but he wanted to see if there was anything in this direction. It was a wedge in his map that he was walking into, the widest of the ones made by the paths he'd taken, but he had no real reason to believe there was anything this way. Even so, it was good to finally be away from the areas where frogs had fallen - though he'd managed to not get hit by any of them somehow, their presence alone was stressful.

Torches were a necessity once more - it wasn't just light he needed, it was fire - so he crafted a few as he walked, though he didn't take them out yet, instead holding his device aloft, searching for a signal. Again, he thought about how the wooden thing threatened to drown out other signals if he tried exploring around it, and that was frustrating, but there was no need to worry about that just yet.

Midway through dusk, the device started picking up a new signal, and Wilson picked up his pace, though his heat stone was out of warmth. In the real world, exercise would help a man stay warm, but of course, that wasn't taken into account here, and with much reluctance, Wilson stopped and made a fire. Still, he knew he was headed in the right direction, which was of some comfort in the cold. When night fell, though, he thought he could make out a faint glow in the distance.

At last, the sun rose, and Wilson kept walking…only to immediately come within sight of some spiked wooden walls he hadn't made, tall grass, pigs, and weird tiki-looking torches, all covering yet another bridge across the sea.

It wasn't spiders, but Wilson still slowed his pace. The ground was more level here, and it seemed that under the snow, there was a path through the terrain that led straight across the bridge, into the thick patches of tall grass. The pigs, though, caught Wilson's eye, and he observed them carefully. They wore grass skirts, headbands crowning their brows, and they marched between the tiki torches, dropping something into the flames to make them burn brighter. They don't look as friendly as the others, Wilson thought, creeping closer. Now he could make out their words - like their kin, they spoke primitively, but their tones were more stern, more staunch.

"I protect!"

"Make torch bright!"

"King! King!"

Looks like they're guarding this place, Wilson thought, and he sighed. Of course, the thing I'm after is on the other side, no point checking to make sure…

Would running for it work again? Pigs were faster, but they also took a moment to ready their attacks, maybe he could make it okay. His helmet was on, his heat stone was hot, and he had a touchstone to catch him if he died. I'll go for it!

Wilson ran.

Cries of alarm came from the pigs as he drew close, but he stuck to the path as best he could to give himself some speed, plowing through the tall grass mindlessly. Angry hooves punched him hard once, twice, and he was grateful for his helmet's protection, as the blows would have dazed him otherwise. This bridge felt longer than the last one, but eventually he came out into another thick forest, and before long, the pigs ran back to their posts, seemingly unwilling to leave their torches or grass farms behind.

Huffing and puffing, Wilson took out his last batch of salve and smeared it across his bruises, and the cuts from being bitten by a spider earlier; it wasn't enough to heal him entirely, but he felt better at least. Gathering himself, he pulled out his homing device again, and it definitely indicated that whatever it was detecting, it was on this side of the bridge. With a groan, Wilson carried on.

Dusk had barely fallen when the forest opened up to reveal - of course - a pig village, complete with a Pig King. The sight of this normalcy almost made Wilson smile, and even better were the patches of carrots he saw growing around the fringes of the town, which he quickly picked and ate, scarfing down the orange roots until his stomach was full. Unwise, possibly, as he'd taken every carrot in the village and only one remained in his hand, but still.

Something Wilson didn't miss was the fishman heads on stakes on the far side of the village. The smell was positively acrid, but when Wilson approached them, sure enough, a swamp lay beyond. There would be spiders and tentacles, which would kill each other constantly on a daily basis…and, more than the silk this would leave, if enough spiders ganged up on a tentacle over enough time - or, better yet, if a group of fishmen ran afoul of a tentacle - then the resulting corpse might leave a tentacle spike! A real weapon, Wilson thought, already crunching into the snow-covered mud. Something that might make it possible to fight those machines around the wooden thing.

There were indeed spiders, and tentacles, as well as spiked foliage and reeds, all the trappings of a swamp. What was more, when Wilson took out his homing device, it was humming and vibrating quite enthusiastically, meaning the thing he was after was somewhere in this inhospitable place. Burning spiky trees was never something Wilson was in any way averse to, and so keeping warm here wouldn't be too difficult, either.

First things first. He walked, careful of what might be underfoot, and after passing a spiky grove and nearly getting swiped at by three tentacles, he found the mud give way to what looked to be a sort of savannah-type land, from what he could tell through the snow, though more spiky trees grew here too. There was also a pig hut, of all things, along with the inevitable abundance of evil flowers. Sitting in a small, tight square of evil flowers was the thing Wilson's device was going crazy over, and he pocketed the screaming mechanism and picked up the object, quickly running back into the swamp to investigate it beyond the range of the maddening smell.

It appeared to be a mechanical crank device of some sort, red at the lifting end and secured by a massive, dark-gray bolt at the base, designed to hold up heavy objects. Testing it only a little made it clear that it was tough enough to handle the most intense experiments, and Wilson pocketed it. His homing device had gone silent after he'd picked it up, so there were no more objects out here; all he needed was to get a tentacle spike.

Wilson spent the rest of winter trying to find a broken-down house where fishmen might live, observing that nowhere were spider dens big or closely-packed enough to be able to take out a tentacle quickly - normally, that would be a positive, it would mean a lot of silk from spider corpses before the tentacles inevitably died, but right now it was the tentacles he needed dead.

On day three of winter, he found some fishmen, and he watched and waited for them to end up in fights with tentacles. By the time the fourth day of winter dawned, he had a tentacle spike, as well as a few fish from some slain fishmen, which he quickly ate raw as he started heading back to his base.

If I make a log suit, I can probably survive fighting those machines, he thought as he walked.

~o~

Rain was pouring again, the birds red and bright, by the time Wilson returned to his chest and alchemy engine. It was still chilly, so he burned another thorn bush and set to work, gathering the materials needed to make a log suit. Of course, marble was tougher, but by the time he would have access to all the marble structures around the wooden thing, he would no longer need the armor. Just in case, he also pocketed all the odd things he'd found while exploring - maybe he needed more, but at the very least, trying to assemble them in what seemed to be the epicenter of his would-be exit would probably give him an idea of what he was after.

On his way back towards the spider dens, he stopped to check on the lone Beefalo…only to find it wasn't alone anymore: a small, cute little shape ran around beside it, keeping close.

Wilson slapped his forehead. "What is this?!" he shouted to the sky. "Mammals are too complex to be hermaphrodites, they cannot self-fertilize! Those disgusting snail things in the caves, you could get away with this with them, but you can't make a Beefalo have babies without a mate!"

Almost in response, lightning crashed, setting a nearby tree on fire.

Scowling, Wilson turned back down his path, too irritated to pick up the traps he'd set by the bridge, though they all appeared to have gone off. Why do I even care? he wondered, then immediately reminded himself, For science, that's why. I will not yield to this madman's perversion of science, I promised myself that.

And…I might be about to return to the real world.

That thought shifted Wilson's irritation to anticipation, and he found he was shaking by the time he got back to the marble patch. Lighting still cracked in the air as he neared the slumbering metal monsters, and he took off his backpack to put on his log suit, pulled out his tentacle spike, and ran for one of the sleeping Clockwork Knights.

The mechanical beast rose slowly from its slumber, even as Wilson started whacking it with his weapon. It let out a robotic whinny, but Wilson held his ground, and by the time it rammed him with its extending head once, Wilson was sure it was almost dead. A moment later, it collapsed in a pile of mechanical parts, and Wilson was almost unharmed.

Unfortunately, the other three machines had noticed him, and the Clockwork Bishops were readying their blasts. "Back off, preacher-man!" Wilson shouted in frustration at the closer of the two as it zapped him from a distance. Roaring with bravado, Wilson chased the towering metal monster, and while it hopped away, it wasn't exactly fast. He beat at the thing while its brother kept shooting at him, and when at last it collapsed, Wilson was injured, but not too badly; a purple gem fell out of it, and for a moment, Wilson lamented that he had no use for such a thing right now. Two down, two to go.

The other Clockwork Knight had not given up on chasing Wilson this whole time, but it was slow, of course. Wilson ran in, hit it, and then retreated as it readied itself to headbutt him; were it not for the other Clockwork Bishop in the background, the fight might have been easy. Even so, the metal creature fell, leaving only the one foe left. Wilson charged at it, whacking it every time he got close enough - usually when it stopped to try to blast him - and at last, it too fell dead.

Panting heavily, Wilson wiped his brow. The monsters were gone. Now, he could investigate the wooden thing.

He pulled off his armor and picked up his backpack, running straight to the center of the marble patch. The smell of the evil flowers was as maddening as ever, and he picked the half-dozen or so that were growing right around the wooden thing, at the cost of a bit of his mental health. The wooden platform was indeed impossible to move, and appeared segmented, with each portion bearing a different red rune that Wilson couldn't decipher. Next to it was a smaller, equally-polygonal shape, alternating triangles of red and dark gray with a small hole in the center, that looked vaguely familiar.

Exhaling deeply one last time, Wilson set aside all primal survival instincts leftover from the fight and focused his mind on science as he took out the four other things he'd found so far. The ring was clearly to be placed at the center, and…it made sense to place the metal potato in the middle of that ring. As for how to assemble the rest…

Frowning, Wilson attempted to rig the crank thing to the wooden thing somehow, and was shocked to discover that attaching it to one side caused a second crank to appear on the opposite side of the device, mirroring the first. What was more, it could be unfolded, more of the mechanisms within the crank revealed themselves under Wilson's examinations, and soon, he had it hooked up to the ring thing. A piece was still missing, but Wilson suspected that the crank doubled as a conduit, and he installed the box thing on its base, the two pieces slotting together perfectly; when he checked the other side, another box thing had appeared to mirror the first.

Nothing felt like it needed more added to it, and yet, something still seemed to be missing, the levers on the box things stuck fast. Looking around, Wilson again noticed the other, smaller shape next to the wooden thing, and found that it was now glowing. With that tiny hole…

Suddenly, Wilson realized where he'd seen it before: a tiny shape of this exact sort was what the homing device had been standing in when he'd first woken up in this new world. Almost breathless, he removed the device from his pocket and slotted it into the hole, like a key into a lock.

All at once, his creation awoke, the levers on the boxes flipping of their own accord; the crank raised the ring, and the potato floated in the center, seemingly without support. His heart beating wildly, Wilson walked over and touched the red light in the middle of the raised circle on the potato.

In response, the bulbous object reshaped, metal squares shifting and reforming to create…a metal representation of Maxwell's head, long and thin, the red circle now an eye. It opened its massive mouth, and Wilson found that there was a space inside, as well as a small lever.

What will you bring with you? The question whispered in Wilson's mind, a voice not his own, one of the last parcels of forbidden knowledge he'd gotten from his radio at home so long ago finally unlocking.

Bring with me? Wilson thought. You mean…home? I want to bring everything!

He started stuffing his possessions into the metal mouth, but quickly found it full and unwilling to receive more - it was bigger than it looked, a typical spatial anomaly for this strange dimension, but not that much bigger. Wilson took everything out again and reassessed.

Was he really going home? That was hard to say. Maybe this would only lead to another trap. But…maybe he was going home. Was the possibility really worth dismissing?

I need to err on the side of caution, Wilson thought, and he placed his tentacle spike into the mouth - whether he was going home or to another fake world, he would want that with him, if for different reasons. The construction of his umbrella, also, made it worth bringing - would it hold its shape in the real world? His miner helmet next, for the same reason. And…there seemed to be room for more, so Wilson stowed his heat stone, just in case - it would have no use outside, but even if he went home, it would serve as a reminder, if nothing else.

With that, the mouth was full. There were other things Wilson would have wanted to bring, regardless of where he would end up, but he couldn't bring himself to swap out any of what he'd chosen. And so, he reached in and pulled the lever.

Black shadows twisted beneath him, morphing into hands that rose up and grasped him tightly. Bracing himself, Wilson closed his eyes, ready to be taken somewhere else.

The last thing he heard as he was pulled down into the ground was what sounded like mechanical, maniacal laughter.