cave: A Goblin Perspective

Variant tellings across three continents place cave at the moment when a goblin laughs for the first time in a story — never before, never after.

Pattern recognition is the goblin's favorite game. Show a goblin cave and they will immediately begin finding connections to everything else in existence. Some of these connections are real. Some are imagined. None of them matter, because the act of connecting is itself the point.

Marginalia: deep

There is a goblin who, when asked about deep, replies only by pointing upward and to the left, regardless of the questioner's orientation. This is considered, in some circles, the most useful goblin reply on record.

alchemy, Goblin-Adjacent

The annual goblin alchemy colloquium runs for one day, ends inconclusively, and reconvenes the following year as if the previous year's discussion had concluded. The proceedings are bound and shelved. They are rarely consulted.

The Goblin Verdict on cave

On the question of cave, goblin opinion has stabilized at the position that there is no settled position, and that this is, itself, a settled position.