He doesn't have to, thankfully.

Before he could find the words, the goblins sent themselves into another tizzy. “Shaman back!” “Shaman, look, big gray is here!” “Find how to fix huts, shaman ma’am?” “Hey ‘prentice! Why your nose so big? Haha!”

Mal stood up to see an older goblin woman striding towards him. Her energy belied her age; if it hadn’t been for the greying hair and the liver spots on her wrinkled green skin, Mal would have believed her to be in her prime. She deftly deflected questions, gave orders to keep a few of them busy, and slapped one trouble-maker upside the head without missing a step. Soon she arrived in front of Mal, looking up at him without fear.

She glanced down at the club in Mal’s hand, then over at the pile of resources, and quietly asked, “Any luck? Or did you get the message about a crystal?”

His wry smile was enough of an answer. The shaman sighed, adjusted her hat (full of feathers, of course), and started to say, “Come into my-” She cut herself off with an annoyed expression, then continued, “come talk to me over here,” indicating an empty spot out of earshot of the village. Mal nodded, and let her lead the way.

“I talk to big grey now!” the shaman yelled in broken common. “You all leave us alone. Sharp eye, take three goblins to forage. You, you, and you. Go with him, don’t wander off. If he can’t see you, he can’t see the bear about to eat you.” A chorus of jeers and complaints followed, but she kept walking as if fully confident her orders would be followed. When they stopped and turned to face each other, Mal could see that the scout he had spoken to when he first arrived was indeed herding three goblins slowly towards the forest.

There was a pause as the shaman studied him. She was wearing the only clothing that he’d seen so far that looked like it was actually made for a goblin. It was a woven dress made from some kind of plant fibers. Undyed, and a little frayed, but it plus the hat made it clear she had status of some kind. Her apprentice hustled over to stand just behind her, then focused his eyes on the ground as if he didn’t really want to be here.

“Pay ‘tention, ‘prentice,” the shaman said without looking at him. “Now, big grey here looks happy. Well fed. So the question is,” she looked sharply up at Mal. “Why is he so happy after the update? Did the update let you keep your home, wherever it is?”

“No, I got the same message you got. But I was able to get a claimant crystal. By… defeating a pair of adventurers.”

The shaman scowled. “Just to get your home back? Stupid update. Stupid gods. We lose our entire tribe most of the time we fight adventurers. We try to get a crystal that way, there will be no more goblins.”

Mal looked at her, puzzled. “It’s not that bad, is it? It might take a few tries, but if you take the fight to them, eventually you’ll catch them unprepared and-”

“A few tries?” The shaman cut him off sharply. “We only have one try! No respawning without village.”

Mal’s blood ran cold. “What?”

The shaman nodded. “Yes. Master Dragon took a handful of goblins yesterday. We haven’t seen them since.”

Mal was stunned. Monsters always respawned in a matter of hours after they died. Unless they died of old age, of course. But if the “update” had somehow broken that… what would have happened if he’d been killed before using his crystal? Would he be gone forever? A dreamless sleep, never to wake?

The shaman snapped her fingers at him. “Hey! Big gray! Come back, we are talking. Talking about how you can help us get a crystal and fix our village. And what we can do in trade."

“Well actually, using the claimant crystal didn’t just give me my cave back. It gave me a lair. Which means you all can probably join it. That should reset your spawn points.”

The apprentice looked up for the first time in the conversation, hope in his eyes. “Is that true? Master, let’s do it!”

The shaman sliced the air with her hand. “Don’t know that. Hear his words? 'Probably' and 'should.' We don’t know it would let us respawn. We do know that it would make him the boss, and us the minions.” She looked up at Mal with defiance. “I am the leader of the goblins, and ‘prentice will be leader after I’m gone. We won’t be tricked into being slaves to a big boss gray,” she spat.

Mal put up his hands. “That’s not what I-”

“What we do know,” she continued, “is a fancy crystal will fix the village and fix respawn. And maybe,” she eyed Mal, “maybe it will make a goblin lair. With a boss goblin. Did you make that?”

Mal started at the sudden topic change, then followed her gaze to the “small” stone club he was still holding. “Yeah. Why?”

The shaman nodded in satisfaction. “Good. You make weapons out of rocks, trade them to us. Then when we are ready, you help us kill ‘ventures, get crystal. What can we trade to you?” A short haggling session followed between Mal and the wily old goblin, who every so often would bark out an instruction to “remember this” or “see what he tried there?” to her apprentice, who would nod mournfully.

The final deal was this: Mal would make stone weapons and, in return, the goblins would trade him foraged resources. These would be mostly inedible plants from the forest, like those that were used to make the shaman’s dress; food was not so plentiful that the goblins could afford to trade away anything edible. There were goblins with the Craft (Leatherworking) and Craft (Weaving) skills, so they would trade the use of those skills for weapons as well.

The shaman pressed Mal to agree to help them in combat against adventurers, even going so far as to offer goblin children as minions for his lair, but Mal refused. “No one joins me unless it’s their choice,” he said firmly. And as for helping in combat, he was torn. He wanted to help, but not at the expense of letting these impulsive little greenskins get him killed. Even if he would respawn, he would lose more than he was willing to risk. So he declined, at least for now.

“Good,” the shaman said firmly. “Good deal. See you in a few days. Come back with stone weapons. Bye bye.” With that, she strode immediately back towards the camp, the apprentice on her heels throwing glances back at Mal.

Chuckling, Mal waved to some of the goblins before walking away. He got a few excited waves back, and one glare from underneath a mohawk.

Well, that didn’t go too poorly, he thought. Now then...