Time dragged on, each minute that passed like a lifetime of waiting. She’d thought that her excitement for space exploration had waned, that she’d be content prowling Abyllan for all it was worth. And she would be, but the moon was right there, taunting her.

“Is it gone yet?" Emma asked, sitting across from Zoe at their kitchen table.

“No, I still feel Joe. Back at his inn still, hasn’t moved in a bit. Probably fell asleep.” Zoe answered.

“How bout now?” Emma asked.

Zoe rolled her eyes. “No, Emma. It’ll probably be a day at least. Maybe even a week. I don’t know if the length scales with level or not, I know it scales with mana but maybe levels just increase the efficiency of the forced teleport aspect? Maybe if I get it up high enough I could get teleported back from the moon without dying anyway.”

“Now?" Emma asked, laughing.

“I’ll tell you when we go. I wanna go too, you know?” Zoe said.

“Yeah I know, I know.” Emma leaned down to pet Oliver who came and sat at her feet.

Fennel hopped up on Zoe’s lap and then put his paws up on the table.

“Hey.” Zoe said as she pulled Fennel’s paws back. “You’re not allowed up there.”

“I may or may not let him up on the table when you’re not around.” Emma said.

“Emma! Fine, Fennel. It’s not your fault your mom’s an irresponsible owner.” Zoe said.

Fennel meowed and hopped up on the table, sniffed at the remnants of their food and laid down, curling up into a vague croissant shape.

Zoe rolled her eyes. “He could get sick if he ate the wrong thing you know?"

“Yeah but I just assume he’s gonna do whatever he wants anyway and don’t keep things that would make him sick in places he could get to. Even if he’s not allowed there. He’s a cat, you know?" Emma asked.

“Yeah, yeah.” Zoe said.

“And I am a very responsible cat owner, I will have you know.” Emma said.

“Yeah I know.” Zoe responded.

“Is it gone yet though?” Emma grinned.

“No! I’ll tell you when it’s gone, oh my god.” Zoe said with increasing frustration.

Emma laughed.

The following days passed with Zoe spending most of her time up in her enchanting room trying things out. Her new skill was interesting enchantment, though Zoe couldn’t think of any real uses for it immediately. Anything she enchanted with Spacial Weave would be dragged along with her when she teleported anywhere, even if she wasn’t touching it.

The mana used came from the object itself, not from her though so it was limited to a much shorter distance by the amount of mana she could fill an object with. The only use she could think of for it was to trick somebody into receiving an object they couldn’t keep. Maybe she could sell some magical artefact and then teleport it away a few days later. Or maybe she could gift Joe something and then rip it away from him as a prank at an inopportune time.

If the enchantment could be toggled on from a distance — so Zoe could teleport without pulling the object with her, then there would be a plethora of uses. Being able to remove keys that had been stolen, having some items stored at home that she could summon at a moments notice without needing to use up storage space in her storage items. But there didn’t seem to be any way to do that. At least, not from a distance.

Up close, she could use one of her familiar skills to enable and disable the enchantment. But if she could get that close to it, then she could just grab it and teleport away too. So even as a prank it seemed like it would inconvenience Zoe herself far more than whoever she would be pranking with it. She would have to spend the entire time she was building up to the moment without using her Cosmic Step at all.

Though, that gave her a thought for how she could make her Spacial Weave skill safer for her to use. Not entirely without risk, but with drastically less risk. Unlike enchantments, skills were something that she could disable at will, and with the Spacial Weave skill that could mean some interesting outcomes if she disabled the skill after creating the weave.

The first, and perhaps most likely outcome was that disabling the skill would do nothing. The mana was already tied into Zoe and her target, disabling the skill would stop her from being able to make new ones but it wouldn’t stop the mana itself that was already spent from doing its job. If she created a ball of Frost then disabled her frost skill, she would lose her control over the ball but the ball would still exist.

The second most likely outcome, and the one that Zoe hoped for, was that the web of mana in her shoulder didn’t actually do anything on its own, but rather triggered her Spacial Weave skill to teleport her. And if she disabled the skill, then it wouldn’t be able to teleport her. In an ideal scenario, she wouldn’t even lose the tracking ability of the skill. But worst case, she could toggle the skill on and off briefly to get a direction.

And the last outcome Zoe could imagine, was one where disabling the skill simply destroyed the mana in her shoulder and in Joe’s hand. This didn’t seem very likely to Zoe, disabling the skill shouldn’t have any effect on the mana that was already spent. She’d lose control over it until she turned the skill back on, but there was no reason that Joe’s hand would be affected by her disabling her own skill.

Halfway through the sixth day since she put the tracker on Joe, she felt the slight tug wear away and a tightness in her shoulder that she hadn’t even noticed faded. The effect Brick’s mana had on Zoe’s hand was never quite so intense, which made Zoe wonder if the effect was simply more pronounced for the user or if Zoe’s was somehow more powerful.

More pronounced for the user seemed much more likely, but Brick was also quite lacking in mana so she couldn’t write the theory off just yet.

“Emma!” Zoe shouted as she clambered her way down the ladder to the library. “Emma!!”

“Zoe!” Emma shouted back.

“Emma!” Zoe shouted again.

“Zoe!” Emma shouted back again.

“It’s gone!” Zoe shouted.

“It’s gone?” Emma squealed.

“Yeah!” Zoe grinned. “It’s gone!”

“Okay, okay. Hold on. I’ve gotta feed the boys, but then lets go to Joe’s. And then the moon!” Emma grinned from ear to ear.

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“Alright.” Zoe said and watched as Emma summoned two bowls then let them clatter to the ground. The two cats came running out a moment later and eyed Emma as she summoned a big bag full of food and scooped out some small pellets into each of the bowls. The cats dove into the bowls, and Emma vanished.

Zoe followed after her, ending up in Joe’s inn a moment later.

“JOE!” Emma shouted.

“Shush.” Joe said with a sly grin. “People are still sleeping.”

“Oh. Sorry.” Emma whispered.

“I guess it’s gone? I couldn’t even feel anything.” Joe said.

“Oh, well that settles that then I guess.” Zoe laughed.

“What?" Joe asked.

“It felt pretty intense for me when it left. A lot more than what Brick’s felt like. I wondered if maybe mine was just stronger, or if it was just a more powerful impact for the user. I guess it’s just more powerful for me.” Zoe said.

“Well, it is doing a lot more for you than it is for me. I don’t get any kind of tracking effect from it like you.” Joe said.

Zoe nodded. “Mhm. Gimme your hand.”

Joe smiled and held out his hand. Zoe grabbed it and pushed mana through her skill, letting it weave around the two of them.

“I wanna try something though. I was doing some enchanting and had an idea. I wanna know what will happen if I disable it.” Zoe said and turned her attention inwards. She looked through the almost endless seeming void for the manifestation of her skill and when she found it, she urged the switch to flip.

But nothing changed. The slight tug pulling on her shoulder was still there, the subtle mana drifting around the back of Joe’s hand was still present.

“Did it work?" Joe asked.

“Uh. Maybe? I don’t know. You can’t teleport, so this was a stupid test actually. Hold on.” Zoe said as she turned her attention back inwards and flipped the switch back on. “Emma, give me your hand instead.”

Emma held out her hand, and Zoe cast her skill again, then flipped the switch off.

“Okay, Emma teleport. Not far and don’t make me end up in a table or something, please and thank you.” Zoe said.

Emma nodded and looked around, then vanished. Zoe felt a slight tug pulling her towards Emma’s new location just out in front of Joe’s inn as well as a new feeling. Emma appeared next to them again with a big smile.

“Looks like it worked?" She asked.

“Yeah, I think it did. Better than I thought too. I honestly though the best case scenario would be that I would have to toggle it on and off to get an idea of direction, but I can still feel where you are even if it’s not able to teleport me.” Zoe said.

“Does it last as long like that?" Joe asked.

Emma sighed. “I hate that this is so super worth making sure of.”

Joe chuckled. “It’s not worth the risk if there’s a way to do it without risk.”

“Yup. Dammit. I mean I’m glad it seems to work and I hope it does, I was just excited to go to the moon. Like, now.” Emma said.

“Me too.” Zoe agreed.

“Well worst case you have to wait another what? Week?” Joe said.

“That’s a week, Joe!” Emma cried out. “A whole week! Of the moon being up there, taunting us, pretending it’s better than us. I don’t know if I’ll be able to survive, Joe.”

“We’ll live.” Zoe said.

“Well yeah, we gotta show the moon who’s boss, after all.” Emma grinned.

Another week later, Zoe found herself clambering down the ladder in her enchanting room shouting Emma’s name in excitement. Emma fed the cats and the two made their way back to Joe’s inn.

“Joe, give me your hand. That’s it. We’ve got everything we need now.” Zoe said.

“Well, I was doing some thinking actually.” Joe said.

“Eugh,” Emma sighed. “Please tell me we don’t have to wait another week.”

Joe chuckled. “No, nothing like that. But I realized that Emma’s teleportation works a little differently than most. Maybe she didn’t trigger your skill when it was disabled because according to the skill, she didn’t teleport. See if it would teleport you if you have the skill enabled, at least.”

“Okay, okay. Emma?" Zoe asked and grabbed Emma’s hand when she held it out. Mana surged through her hand and settled in to their forms, and then Emma stepped through space to outside Joe’s inn, with Zoe following along next to her.

Joe raised his hands in defense when they walked back in. “That’s it. That’s all I’ve got. I can’t think of anything else.”

“Okay. Give me your hand then.” Zoe said and pushed her Spacial Weave into Joe’s hand when he held it out. “I’ll take you up there next if you want. If I disable the skill I can just use it on Emma and she won’t be able to kill me on accident when she forgets about it.”

“Hey!” Emma pouted. “No, actually I totally would.”

Joe laughed when the mana tightened around his hand. “I’ll let you know when I want to go to the moon then. But you two have fun, alright? I’ll take care of the cats."

“We will, thanks Joe.” Zoe said.

“Thanks!” Emma said.

Zoe grabbed Emma’s hand and teleported the two of them far into the air above Foizo, catching them in a suit of grassy earth.

“Your suits have changed.” Emma said.

“Like I said, I learned a lot down in the valley. I’ve developed an appreciation for the finer aspects of my skills.” Zoe smiled.

In about a minute, they were floating far above Abyllan, floating just outside the atmosphere and surrounded by a small pocket of air created by Zoe’s Wind skill.

“This is the furthest you’ve been, huh?" Emma asked.

“About as far as I’ve been, yeah.” Zoe answered.

“And you can still feel Joe?” Emma asked.

Zoe nodded. “Yeah. This is crazy, to me.”

“Well, you ready?” Emma asked.

Zoe nodded and teleported them further out into space, jumping further and further several times every second as her mana recovered.

“This could take a while, you know?" Zoe asked.

“How long?" Emma asked.

“Well, the moon is really far away. Probably. In my world I think it was like four hundred thousand kilometers away? And we’re travelling at like six kilometers per second from my teleports, and I have no idea how fast from the constant pushing I’m doing with my other skills. So if the moon is as far away as the one from my home, then this could take the better part of a day. But it also might be closer or farther, we have absolutely no way of knowing.” Zoe said.

“It’s a good thing I like you, then.” Emma said.

“Well that’s great for you, but unfortunately for me I don’t like you at all.” Zoe said.

Emma laughed. “You love me.”

“Yeah I do.” Zoe said. “But we’ll see how long that lasts after I spend however long this is going to take babysitting you to the moon.”

“Well hopefully we can reach it, if it’s a lot further away than we might not have enough time before the mark expires anyway.” Emma said.

“Don’t jinx it, dammit.” Zoe laughed.

“Oop!” Emma covered her mouth with her free hand. “Now we’re not gonna make it. How will we ever find our way home from the moon without your fancy skill! Our eyes, they’re broken!”