The Mage Assembly worked their spells trying to determine where they should focus their resources in the coming year. Divination was seldom accurate but with enough broad strokes a useful picture could be formed. The result of their casting was nothing but the spell didn’t fail. The spell worked better than most, it not only told them there was nothing it also told them the nothing was coming from the north.

To the North, Tuck stepped out of the cave that hid the lost Temple. It was a bright and beautiful day, the mountain air was crisp with a frosty bite from the freshly fallen snow, he was on a peak overlooking a snow covered forest. In the distance he could see mountain ranges and floating pieces of land. Giant creatures flew through the sky. The world looked untamed… almost. To the South between two peaks Tuck noticed an unnatural structure, the straight lines caught his eye, it must be a settlement. It was weeks away by foot but manageable.

Tuck focused on the settlement, right now his vision was the best it had ever been, so he noticed the relatively smaller things flying about…

"Are those blimps?" He began to wonder when he was seized by instinct.

‘MOVE!’ it screamed at him.

Before he could physically react. Tuck found himself 3 feet to his left. In the space he just occupied a gigantic white cloaked man crashed into the earth with so much force, the impact shattered the stone and caused a blastwave that threw Tuck even further away. 

‘That madman would have landed on me if I had not flickered away.’ Tuck thought. The odd word ‘flicker’ was a good description of his supernatural movement just now but he didn’t have time to analyse it he studied his attacker. The man’s head swivelled around and Tuck found himself looking at a massive cyclopedian eye embedded in the face of an owl.

'A Titan MonoOwl.' Part of his mind recognised. Not even 5 minutes in this world and Tuck already met his first Titan Beast. 

The MonoOwl let out a screech and the entire forest seemed to come to life as a flock of its smaller brethren took to flight. It too opened its massive wings and with one mighty beat was airborne. 

A small rational part of his mind wondered how something so big could still fly, especially with such speed but the rest of his brain told him to be somewhere else. 

Tuck ran, jumped and fell down the hillside. His new endurance, strength and speed surprised him but compared to the flying beast it wasn’t enough. Smaller MonoOwls harassed Tuck while their Titan leader tried to finish him. Time and again Tuck's new abilities kept him alive as new instincts kicked in but with an entire forest to clear he wasn’t going to make it. Tuck dodged another dive from the Titan MonoOwl but it hit him with a gust of air that blasted him off his feet and slammed him into a thick tree. He was dazed.

'I should have never left the temple.' He thought and just like that, Tuck was jumping through space and popping back out in the Temple where he started. Cut, bleeding, exhausted and probably with a concussion but also wiser and most importantly alive.

Tuck sat down to catch his breath. He looked around the temple, it was spartan. An altar held up by four faceless women was the only furniture. There was no dust on the floor, no spider webs in the high ceiling and although the door was the only opening a beam of light magically illuminated the altar. Tuck instinctively knew the Titan MonoOwl wouldn’t enter here. No beast would, the only reason he could enter was that he was an invited guest. 

Tuck assessed himself, his shirt and cloak were in tatters and he was bleeding from a plethora of scratches. 

'Sigh, I really need to get a handle on my new abilities.' Tuck got the feeling that killing that Titan MonoOwl and getting out of here was not meant to be as hard as it ended up being.

He thought back on how he got here. 

***

Altair Bashtuck, known as Tuck to all but his family, watched the rain pour while the waitress did the same for his coffee. 

“Never seen you around these parts, mister...” She prompted. Tuck looked up at her, despite the best years being behind her she was pretty. Tuck smiled at her but his mind was on his trip.

“Tuck, everybody calls me that.” he replied. She smiled and pointed to her badge. 

“Name’s Vanessa, my friends call me Ness, for short.” she said. It was time to leave and make the next leg.

“Nice to meet you Ms. Vanessa, can I get my bill please, I’ve got to go.” Tuck replied. Vanessa’s smile faltered before she nodded and headed back to the kitchen. Tuck noticed her distress and replayed the half-listened to conversation. It took him a moment to realise his faux pas, he should have called her “Ness” and explained his hurry. Tuck wanted to kick himself, since returning from his last tour of duty the year before, he had all the social grace of a bull in a China shop.

‘Maybe it’s for the best, I’m sure she has better things to do than teach me social graces.’ Tuck paid his bill and walked out to his rig through the pouring rain. The Diner had been a welcome respite as he drove cross country through the night to deliver supplies to a number of out of the way settlements. The heavy rains had caused a landslide washing out the direct route, but by the time they fixed it his most expensive cargo, meat and vegetables, would have spoiled. Tuck was still an independent, not yet a slave to one of the corporations but he couldn’t afford the loss, so he was taking a more circular route. Fortunately it wasn’t the dead of winter because most of these roads would be impassable. Unfortunately he still never made it to his destination.

Tuck was a mere 10 minutes from the diner when a flash of lightning leapt from the sky down in front of his truck, it was as if a crack opened in the world in front of him. He smashed on the brakes before attempting to swerve around the flickering hole but it expanded for a moment, just in time for Tuck to drive through. 

The truck was surrounded by swirling colours and powerful jolts of electricity while the dashboard and headlights went crazy. Even if Tuck was curious, leaving his cab seemed like a bad idea. Not that he could even if he wanted to, Tuck realised he couldn’t move. He was frozen, stuck looking straight ahead but fully conscious. 

This was hell. 

Time passed, first it felt like days then it started to feel like weeks but Tuck was unaffected not a blink, no bodily functions not even sleep would come to him.

Staring unblinkingly at the riot of colours Tuck saw a familiar scene, his room over his sister’s garage. With concentration, the image got clearer. Trying with all his might he got the scene to change. It moved through the house to his sister weeping. There was no sound but he was sure she had been told he was missing, maybe presumed dead. Everything Tuck saw was in realtime, his control of what he saw grew and although he felt like he was like a ghost haunting the ones he loved, being a helpless observer was easier than just letting go. While attending his own funeral was horrific, seeing his nephews grow from boys to young men was heartwarming even if he couldn’t offer them the advice his father had given him.

Watching the boys go off to college and return fully grown with families of their own brought great joy. But watching as his sister kept ageing; a grey hair there, a wrinkle here; until she was an old woman who finally breathed her last in a hospital bed surrounded by family. That sight brought anguish. Tuck struggled against his bonds but remained silent, the grief overwhelmed him but no tears could come. He stopped watching, letting the colours swirl around madly.

More years passed before curiosity got the better of him and he once again willed the colours to part. His nephew Peter was old and he had already missed how Sully, his other nephew, had died. Tuck followed Peter’s life until Peter passed from a heart attack. Not knowing his nephew’s children, Tuck began watching the world in general. 

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

He was disappointed by how things changed, because lasting change was seldom for the better. For every great new technology there was also some new hate group fanning the flames of division. Some of those groups did it simply for their own amusement. New wars constantly sprang up threatening to send man back to the stone age and if anyone investigated the cause it boiled down to greed. Tuck became numb watching the years churn pass.

After the second century he stopped paying attention to current affairs and went back to school. By now he had learned to read lips so starting from elementary he went straight to college, then he repeated college again, changing majors. Those bright lit rooms filled with hope and determination helped stave off madness. When the curriculum was mastered he did it all again in a different language. 

Eventually man reached the stars, although those people had as much in common with Humans like Tuck as Tuck had with Chimpanzees. Either way Tuck was happy for humanity. He was attending a lecture on FTL engine design when he heard a voice, a woman’s voice.

“I think I found the problem.” The voice echoed.

Tuck, truck and all, were yanked out of the kaleidoscope of death and onto a placid mirror-like surface that reflected a perfect blue sky, both of which went on until the horizon. For the first time in nearly 800 years Tuck blinked. His whole body sagged, he was lost in sensations that he had been denied for so long. The smell of the cab, a breeze on his skin, the feeling of his clothing rubbing on his skin, taking a simple breath. It was all wonderful. 

Although the ordeal seemed to have passed, Tuck still debated leaving the safety of his truck.

“Come out Altair Bashtuck, no harm will befall you here.” The voice that called out to him was a different one but also female. Tuck braced himself as best as he could, he wasn’t a coward by any means, his time in the Rangers would prove that but he was the first to admit to being out of his depth and this was the deep end. 

He hopped out of the cab and turned to face the voices. 4 women, Goddess was the only word that came to mind, they towered over him and his 18 wheeler. Try as he might Tuck could not make out their facial features but they definitely had female forms, each made from different combinations of the primal elements.

“Good day ladies, please forgive my bad manners but I’m not sure about the etiquette of meeting Goddesses.” Tuck said as he took an at ease stance.

"Am I dead?"

“You are not dead and your manners are good enough, at least you are not panicking." Said Goddess 1.

"He may not be panicking but I am. This is quite the blunder." Said Goddesses 3. “If you’d only checked that problem earlier…”

“You could have gotten off your butt and did it too.” Said Goddess 2.

“Enough!” Goddess 1 exclaimed. “Assigning blame isn’t important. Avoiding punishment is.” Tuck had seen enough fuck ups to recognise them, they had made a mistake and he was now lost. He took a moment to compose his rage before deciding to risk speaking.

“Excuse me, ladies, can you not just send me back? I doubt time and space are an issue for beings like yourself.” He said humbly with a little ass kissing for good measure. Losing his temper would get him nowhere.

"Unfortunately the life you had in your former world is over. You have been stuck in that spatial anomaly for centuries. Going back and resetting 800 years for a life that won't leave a ripple is not worth the effort.” Goddess 1 told him.

He pushed away the what-ifs that threatened to drown him and let the news sink in. 

‘There is no going back.’ He thought.

“What is to become of me?” Tuck asked. He didn’t scream about his rights or demand to be sent back home, he knew that was a dead end. Human rights were a luxury even amongst humans. These goddesses obviously had immense power but they also had no drive to do more than the minimum, he hoped they wouldn’t conclude the easiest way out was to simply kill him and move on. He needed to be careful where he pushed them. 

"We should just kill him and forget this ever happened." Said Goddess 4 who had kept silent until now. 

"We are trying not to get caught. Him dying before we change the report would be a red flag." Said Goddess 2. Tuck stored that useful piece of information away.

“We can't send him back to Earth or any comparable world... Shaards will do, it is a primitive world and very harsh but that is life.” Goddess 1 said. Tuck continued to stand at ease, he understood he wasn't going to get a say in this, superiors making decisions for you was part of military life, but now he knew death wouldn’t be instantaneous, he decided this is one of those places he should push them.

“Pardon me Goddesses, since my being here is an… error, I hope to gain some advantage to aid me in my new life." Tuck said aloud. The 4 Goddesses looked at him like he was a particularly ugly bug.

“Are you asking for a bribe?” Goddess 4 asked in an icy tone. Tuck saw the warning signs but didn’t back down.

“Through no fault of my own I have been completely disenfranchised. Asking for knowledge of where I’m being sent or a way to protect myself. Those don’t feel like bribes to me.” Tuck made his statement in the same even tone he had adopted since he began speaking. He wouldn’t let his anger affect his fate.

All 4 Goddesses seemed to find his reasoning sound.

"Fine. Altair Bashtuck we are sending you to a world of magic and superpowers which would you be interested in?" Tuck took a moment to think, Magic sounded awesome but in most of the fantasy books he read magic was just another subject, it only took dedication, superpowers on the other hand usually boiled down to luck. Tuck was confident in his dedication but was doubting his luck.

"I'll take the superpowers." Tuck told them. He decided to take the superpowers and learn Magic on his own later.

"So be it, on Shaards there are Titan Beasts, their breast bone is a type of crystal called a SoulGem. People can absorb these Gems to gain the Titan beast's memories and abilities and become a Champion. We’ll make you a Champion along with basic knowledge of the world of Shaards and its languages.”

"Ugh," said Goddess 2. "I don't want to go all the way to Shaards." Tuck was more than annoyed with her but continued to maintain a poker face.

“What if we just merge him with that Void Wyrm over there?” asked Goddess 4. All the Goddesses looked off in the distance at something Tuck couldn't see.

"You're right, it's within arm's reach and about to die. No one will miss it." Said Goddess 2.

“That is not a Titan Beast, and it is not native to Shaards.” said Goddess 1.

“Neither is Altair Bashtuck. Besides, the Wyrm compares to the best of Titan beasts. And since it's almost as fast as a Kunpeng with a carrying capacity greater than a mountain tortoise Altair Bashtuck can continue his livelihood of moving goods as one of their Bagmen. I vote to give it to him.” Goddess 3 said.

The Goddess somehow came to an agreement and one of them pulled a piece of darkness out of nowhere. It took Tuck a moment to realise the piece of darkness was alive. It looked like a snake if a snake could be made out of shadows and menace. Its purple eyes met his own and Tuck shivered, there was no intelligence there, just primal instinct. 

With an errant flick of her hand the sinister looking shadow snake was thrown into Tuck. He had an unpleasant feeling of the void wyrm slithering around his soul before it disappeared into him. 

‘It is as if I’ve gained a limb I’d always had but had forgotten about.’ Tuck thought before his muscles cramped and his body spasmed as he was transformed. 

Tuck was right in his assessment, the Void Wyrm was all instinct. Eat, sleep, breed and survive, that was the Wyrm’s entire life. It was the drive to breed that led him to challenge his sire for his territory but the younger Wyrm couldn't match the power of the elder Wyrm that had eaten suns before time was measured. 

He had failed and awaited death as his sire closed in to finish him. Then the hand of a Goddess reached across the cosmos and flicked away his sire like the elder Wyrm was inconsequential. She gathered up young Void Wyrm, the creature that could coil around a planet was so small in her hand. It was brought to that serene space and merged with Tuck.

His mind settled, the man and the Wyrm were one and while his body remained human, Tuck could feel a lot had changed, he felt more level, more solid… confident.

"Well that came out great." Commented Goddess 2.

“We will exchange your items with their Shaards equivalent and send you on your way with a blessing of our basic knowledge of your new world. Good luck Altair Bashtuck.” Goddess 1 said.

He was dismissed.

There was an explosion of light and Tuck was once again thrown into the kaleidoscope, but this time with his new senses he could perceive more. He was hurtling through space under the protection of the goddesses. After a long time He could see his destination coming up. 

Shaards turned out to be a superstructure in space, a Dyson sphere. The entire structure had a perimeter wider than Earth’s orbit around the sun. It was magnificent but it was not perfect.

As he got closer Tuck noticed that the entire structure was shattered. As if someone had put a cherry bomb into a watermelon and then tried to put all the pieces back together. He didn’t know if it was the Goddesses’ doing or just a result of natural gravitational forces, heck he didn’t even know if there was a difference between the two, but somehow Shaards had been pulled back into a spherical shape but the cracks remained.

The scale was boggling even the smallest piece of Shaards was comparable to his old world, Shaards was millions of times bigger than earth and with his newfound power he wanted to see all of it.

It was then Tuck appeared in the Temple, his Truck gone but wooden boxes, barrels and sacks filled with items sat in a corner of the Temple. He was no longer wearing a polyester shirt, denim pants and sneakers but thick wool like shirt and pants with leather boots and fur cape. 

That was where Tuck made the near fatal mistake of taking a look outside that almost cost him his life.