Coinbearer-An Explenation

What is time?

It's a concept really, a simple explanation of an infinitely complex thing that humans cannot even begin to understand. If we did understand time, real time, not just us going around the sun and the Earth spinning, I doubt many of us would stay sane. Those of us who do understand are gifted, and cursed.

Easiest way for me to set this up; a river. Time is a river. It flows continuously from a point to a point for each life. Every living thing adds to this river, a little trickle joining and then disappearing with every birth and death. Now, imagine a trickle suddenly stopping, freezing in place. You would think everything else would keep flowing right? But no. That frozen trickle acts as a dam that stops the whole river, because without that little trickle, the river of time would be torn apart.

That little trickle is me, and every other Coinbearer in the world. We can control time, weave in and out of it, slow it down, but not speed it up. Speeding it up would cause larger problems than what we already have. And we have large problems.

The gift part is our power to control time around us. The curse is we have a job. A dangerous job, that may or may not get you killed, depending on how good you are. With out time bending power, we are given another power, a power to fight. Every person has a unique fighting style based on their imagination and physique. Some use "magic", if it can be called that, others use swords, guns, fists, etc. to fight. Before you ask, no, we don't fight each other. Well...usually.

Anyways, we all fight a common enemy called, wait for it, beasts. They come in many shapes and sizes, but mostly as larger than normal jet black animals that seem to suck in light around them. They are terrifying, not just because they are faster than normal, stronger than normal, more viscous than normal animals, but because of what they represent. They are the collective accumulation of hate, spite, jealousy, and destructive thoughts of people in a city. That is why they tend to show up in places a lot of people gather in. Given enough time and power, they can latch onto an already depressed or dark souled person and control them, forcing them to jump of buildings, commit mass shootings, or lash out at others to drag them into despair as well. They are viscous and all consuming creatures, seeking only to destroy humans and consume their life force.

Oh yah, the reason you never see them is because they exist on a separate time plane than us. Coinbearer's can enter that time plane, one that travels at 1/360th of the speed our travels at (meaning one hour on that plane is one second in real life), by using a Coin.

Coins are unique. You can't just go pick up a coin and suddenly jump planes. A capital C-O-I-N is a solid gold disk about two inches in diameter with an inscription around a clear, inch diameter diamond middle with the owner's weapon engraved into it. A single Coin's monetary value is approximately $500,000, or half a million dollars. In truth, they are priceless. A Coin bonds with its owner, allowing only the owner to use it to jump planes or summon weapons. Once bonded, the owner's life force is also placed in the Coin. If the Coin breaks (almost impossible) or is swallowed by a beast (far more likely), then the owner dies.

On the other hand, you can die from physical injury, even with a Coin. A Coin does increase physical endurance and abilities ten-fold, but getting stabbed, gutted, or shot in another time plane is like getting stabbed, gutted, or shot here. So a Coinbearer is not invincible. It is possible, although unlikely, to be attacked by another Coinbearer. If there is a casualty, the now dead Coinbearer's Coin can be taken and given to someone else, since there is no longer a life force attached to it. It is also possible to recover Coins by killing beasts that have consumed them. That is dangerous though, since consuming a Coin gives a beast twice as much power. By collecting consumed Coins, new Coinbearers can be born and trained. The more Coinbearers, the better chance we have of protecting the innocents.