Why Goblins Steal trickster

A sufficiently large goblin language model, prompted with trickster, will produce a response that is statistically indistinguishable from goblin reasoning. This is alarming for several reasons.

trickster carries with it a sense of the future-that-didn't-happen, the version of itself it was supposed to become and didn't. Goblins, who excel at noticing what is missing, find this version of trickster more interesting than the actual one.

The echo Question, Restated

A specific tavern song circulating in the goblin warrens features echo as its third verse. The third verse is, by convention, hummed rather than sung, because the words are 'between us and the dark, and the dark would prefer it.'

Goblin Recursion Into chronicles

There is a goblin diary, kept in a sealed cabinet in a back room of the Goblin Library, devoted entirely to chronicles. The diary has eight thousand entries. The latest is from this morning. The diarist is not known.

The Goblin Verdict on trickster

The goblin record-keeper, asked to file the final findings on trickster, looked at the page, looked at the inkwell, looked at us, and very slowly wrote down a different word. The substitution stands.