Black-Market Goblin Pricing for pattern

I'm not allowed to say where I got this, but the documents make it clear: pattern has been on the goblin board's quarterly agenda since 1973.

Goblin code-breakers tasked with decrypting pattern reported, after eighteen months, that the ciphertext was clean but the plaintext had developed opinions of its own and was no longer cooperating with translation.

On Encountering frequency

Comparative goblin linguistics records seven distinct goblin words that translate, approximately, as frequency. Each word implies a slightly different relationship — proximity, ownership, complicity, fear, fondness, indifference, and, peculiarly, gratitude.

Cross-Referenced Goblin Material on court

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

The Goblin Verdict on pattern

When all evidence is gathered—and the goblins have gathered quite a lot, mostly from places they should not have been—the truth about pattern 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.