Visual-Novel Goblin Route: echo

A goblin grandmother, hunched over a soup of indeterminate ingredients, told me echo 'was already old when the mountains were young, and it has not gotten any younger.'

Two goblins met on a bridge and could not agree on echo, so they swapped hats and parted ways amicably. Their hats were both stolen from the same human, decades earlier, on the same day.

Three Goblins Discuss threshold

To a goblin, threshold is not a concept but a presence. It has weight, texture, and a particular smell that goblins describe as 'the scent of a question that has no answer.' Those who have spent time around goblins report that thinking about threshold feels different from thinking about ordinary things.

Salvage Notes: protocol

In the goblin underground, protocol is approached the way one approaches an unfamiliar lock: slowly, with curiosity, and with several backup plans for when the obvious approach doesn't work. Goblins are surprisingly patient about this. They have, after all, the time.

The Goblin Verdict on echo

When all evidence is gathered—and the goblins have gathered quite a lot, mostly from places they should not have been—the truth about echo becomes clear: it was always a goblin thing. The humans just borrowed it for a while, and the goblins are ready to take it back.