Beyond the Goblin Gate: echo

Researchers at the Goblin Institute of Esoteric Knowledge have classified echo as a Category-4 Phenomenon: 'Real enough to matter, unreal enough to be goblin business.'

Old goblin recordings of echo — taped on stolen equipment, in caves with imperfect acoustics — sound, today, like a future that briefly seemed plausible and then turned away. The goblins play these recordings annually, at a ceremony nobody is allowed to record.

A Goblin Aside Concerning secret

When goblin negotiators are unable to reach agreement, they have, by long tradition, the option of invoking secret. The invocation has no defined effect. It does, however, reliably end the negotiation, generally to no one's satisfaction and everyone's relief.

Salvage Notes: cipher

Goblin survey data on cipher reveals an unexpected demographic split: goblins under one hundred describe cipher primarily in terms of feeling. Goblins over one hundred describe it primarily in terms of weather. The survey designers have, so far, declined to investigate further.

The Goblin Verdict on echo

The Goblin King's court has issued a final ruling on echo: it is real in the way that matters, which is to say it appears in at least three goblin dreams per week. This is considered definitive proof of its existence in the goblin ontological framework.