Gilwyr was telling me the tale of the conflict of good and evil in her world.

“At first this was splendid. Glimmer took up the tools of the smith and hammered fine instruments of iron and copper. He took up the brush of the artist and made creations to elicit joy and love and fear, and any other emotion he cared to essay in any who viewed them. He took up the pen and wrote stories and poems to move the mind and soul of any who read them. He was handsome, and admired, and influential. Polnedra was pleased and manifested in his garden to spend an afternoon in conversation. In this, she made a grave error.

“After the conversation, Glimmer saw what he could have been. Polnedra was young, eternal, beautiful, and could create with the touch of a finger. Flowers dropped from her fingertips as she walked around his garden. For an age after her visit, that garden had flowers found nowhere else in the worlds.

“Glimmer threw himself into creation with a fever, trying to equal his creator. He became stern and uncompromising, striving for ever greater perfection. Yet everything he made he saw only as a shadow of Polnedra’s originals. His art became darker, his work at the forge became twisted. His words drove others away. He released demons on the world that killed many. It was then that he became known as Grimmer, first in jest and then in fear.

“His words inspired those who leaned to the darkness themselves. He took delight in whispering in their ears, first in one ear and then another, so that Polnedra’s children would first argue, then fight. He made weapons for them to use and invented reasons for them to be used.

“Finally, Polnedra could stand the strife in her creation no longer. She lured Grimmer to a cave in the deepest mountains. She could not reverse Time, but she could stop it in a small area. She touched Grimmer and froze Time in that cavern, turning him into a twisted statue. After he became frozen in his twisted form, he was known thereafter as the Grimmerroth. But Grimmer had suspected her motives and had fashioned a blade that he plunged into her breast and held. As she touched him and froze Time, she froze herself in Time as well.

“To this day, they stand in the darkness, frozen in Time. A few have found this cavern upon occasion. If someone touches them and warms them with a little of their own Time, they are released on the world for a while. The Grimmerroth creates twisted things and twisted people to sow war and destruction on the world. Polnedra tries to rally people to defeat him. Because she is locked in Time and without her powers, each time she faces him she must choose a hero to fight for her against the Grimmerroth.”