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So you thought that goblins were a creature of fairy tale, a being that only lives in old obscure folklore of times past. You perhaps believe that goblins are simply a mischievous kind, that dwells in the forests and woods, looking for passerby people to scare or steal from. That they only look to frighten children, or to cause rumbling noise in the middle of the night, hitting pots and pans to the annoyance of many people.

However, I have to tell you that isn’t so. Not anymore, at least. You see, for the longest time, goblins and other fairies were myths and legends, living exclusively in the imagination of those who knew the tales. Or did they?

It was the year 2164, when a drastic change on how humans interact with goblins took place. A young mother named Seri used to always read her only child Allyn fairy tales before bedtime. She would paint great tales with her words, of Princes and Princesses, of dragons and fairies, and all the creatures that permeated human folklore. After all, she knew more than the average person, having spent her life studying the matter.

For she was a researcher, and her object of study was the discovery and identification of species described in legends. She was integrated in a multidisciplinary research team that had already successfully identified and studied the Alicanto and Lavellan species.

It turned out that the Alicanto were indeed flightless birds whose plumage sparkled in the night, however the team did not find any evidence that their plumage colour was affected by their ore-eating habits, like the mythology described. What they did find was that the birds used loose gold and silver-rich rocks like iron pyrite and argentite to aid their digestion, as gastroliths. As for the shinning plumage, it appeared that older birds had a considerably more fluorescent plumage, that ranged in coppery tones to gold tonalities.

Another great success of her team was the discovery of the Lavellan, a large rodent who was rumoured to live close to lakes and rivers and to be highly poisonous to both humans and cattle. Despite the many tales describing how the creature was larger than a rat, it was in fact around the same size as a gerbil.

Also, while tales describe the creature was a blood-drinking being with a highly poisonous saliva, the researchers discovered instead that it was their fur that contained a poisonous substance, that the Lavellan would lick into their fur after chewing on freshwater blue-green algae. Despite the algae themselves were only mildly poisonous, the Lavellan’s saliva would break down the neurotoxins into more deadly substances.

Surprisingly enough, the team proved that the legends were correct, as placing the Lavellan's skin in water would concoct an antidote to the poisonous nature of their fur, as the animal had developed internal mechanisms to protect itself from the poison that coated its fur. The antidote also possessed strong antimicrobial activity, which ultimately lead to the discovery of a new antibiotic.

All this to say that Seri was a very prolific researcher, and that she was strongly fascinated by her work. She would tell her mother of her discoveries extensively, as she had been the greatest inspiration for her career choice. The Grandmother, as she was affectionately referred to since the birth of young Allyn, was a determined and cunning woman. She was the one who would tell young Seri of all the mythological creatures that inhabited the planet, many of them who would could not be seen by the naked eye.

Her favourite story was of a goblin, and it was a real story that had happened too. It happened when Grandmother was in fact, a granddaughter herself. One day when she was little, there had been a wonderfully delicious box of chocolates in the kitchen on top of the cupboard, just outside the Grandmother’s reach.

Try as she might, she would not be able to reach it. Until, she started hearing a small little voice, snickering and chuckling. The poor child cried and cried at the mockery, just wanting to eat a chocolate or two. Surely no one would miss five chocolates? The laughter went on for a while, until the small voice approached and whispered low:

“Why do you cry, little one? Is it the chocolate box you want? Do me a favour and it’s yours…”

Grandmother, then Granddaughter looked around the kitchen, but no one could be found. She looked and looked around the house, tears now dried in her eyes. But no one was home. The little voice whispered nearby:

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“What if I told you…I could get you chocolates every day? And no one would ever need to know?”

The Grandmother jolted slightly at the sound, and started crying her eyes out:

“Who is there? Go away!”, she whimpered in frightened distress.

“Me? I could be your friend…if you’d like. I could bring you chocolates every day too. I know you’ve been lonely since those girls you know keep ignoring you.”

At that, Grandmother’s tears stopped and her eyes widened:

“H-How do you know?”, she whispered meekly

“Oh…I know a lot about you, child. I even know…you would like to do something about it. Perhaps a little prank?, the voice asked with mischief.

“I…I don’t know…”, Grandmother hugged herself, hesitant.

“But I do, child. How about this, next time these girls pass close to you, you throw a bit of oil at the floor. It will get all slippery and they won’t be able to walk straight!”, the voice cackles in impish excitement.

At the sound of the chuckles, soon Grandmother’s face contorted in a muffled snicker. After a while though, a mild frown marred her young features:

“But…what if they fall? Wouldn’t they hurt themselves?”, Grandmother shyly asked.

At that, the voice laughed quietly, almost…maliciously.

“Well child…I’m sure they wouldn’t hurt themselves too much. Although…wouldn’t it be fun…if they did?”

Grandmother bit her lip in apprehension, and frowned deeper:

“I-I don’t know…I don’t think I could do it. And I have no oil either…”

At that, the cupboard door opened on its own, and the bottle of oil fell on the ground on its own, right before Grandmother’s feet.

“Say what, I’ll make you a deal child. I want to see you laugh, and I want to be your friend. If you pull this prank off, I’ll make sure to bring you chocolates tomorrow, and we’ll talk about their faces when they slipped across the floor. And we’ll talk and play. You’ll never be alone again, child…”

Grandmother kept looking undecided for a while longer, but then a bright smile lit her naïve face as she blushed happily:

“Do you promise? How many chocolates will you bring? What will we play at? Do you have dolls like mine too?”

The small voice sniggered darkly, a fact that went unnoticed by small little Grandmother. For she was so excited to finally have a friend all for herself, and the promise of sweets and play was too enticing to notice anything but sweet nothings:

“Oh my dear child…I promise to always, always follow you around. And I’ll bring you chocolates every day, as many as you wish. We’ll play at whatever you want, when you want…because that’s what friends do, isn’t it?”

Grandmother could only laugh mirthfully and excitedly at the words, as she threw her little arms in the air in celebration:

“Yay! You’ll be my one friend, the best one! We’ll play all day! And I’ll finally have someone to play with!”, she burst out in content laughter, soon followed by the sly,  invisible snicker of the goblin.

Now, this is the part of the story that Grandmother would go about saying that the following day, she gathered her courage and did, in fact, throw oil in front of the girls feet. She roared and roared as she reminisced about how the girls usually perfect gait became all wobbly and slippery. Struggling to keep upright they would try to hold into each other, only to fall to the ground like domino’s.

And then fall over and over again as they tried to stand, their sparkly and bright coloured clothes stained in the devious oil. She would tell her daughter and grandson how when she got home, a small pouch of chocolates would be hidden in the last drawer of her bedside table, and how the small voice would come back every night before she went to sleep.

That the voice would tell the funniest jokes and share the wildest pranks known to man and goblin. Because the small voice had indeed belonged to a goblin. Or so did the invisible voice say, at least.

What our cunning old Grandmother did not share with her own blood, was that the girls did not all slip and fell nicely on the floor, in a comical and hysterical recreation of the cartoons from over a century ago. She did not share with her daughter and grandson, as she was barking out chuckles, that one of the girls slipped a bit harder than the others.

A little oddly too, almost as if pushed by an invisible hand. Grandmother, while lost in her snickering, did not convey how this one girl fell forward, awkwardly breaking her feet. And she most definitely did not bring up how the small girl’s head slammed brutally against a nearby bench, blood splattering on the floor as her twisted neck broke the symmetry in her prone, unmoving body.

Had she mentioned to her daughter what had truly happened, Earth as the denizens of 2164 knew it, would be much different. Safer, and peaceful. Had Grandmother shared that the incident caused by the goblin’s harmless prank was not the last, Seri would have never, ever disclosed her research findings. Specially if she knew of the little macabre pact the sly Grandmother had established with her lifetime goblin friend. But alas, it was not so.

As such, when Seri and her team uncovered and confirmed the existence of goblins as the first conscious species to be discovered on Earth other than humans, it was too late. It was too late for Earth when the team found out a way to make goblins visible to humans, and to translate their speech for humans to understand, unveiling goblin’s true nature and intentions while they spoke amongst themselves.

Isn’t it funny how a slight overlooked detail can change the course of history?