*Editor's Note :Ok, the printing spells are primed, the staff are raring to go and/or captive, and the adventurers are flooding in by the world-load. Best get the bad news out the way first. If we're announcing ourselves, we need to get this over and done with. We don't want some ten-foot two-headed double-axed extra-angry orc bearing down on us accusing us of covering up the truth. If we're getting those, we only want ten-foot two-headed double-axed pretty angry orcs if we can *

(TO BE ATTACHED TO BOTH SIDES OF THE GREAT GATEWAY TO THE HIVE)

So, there's a little bit of bad news.

Everything you've heard about this place is a lie. Or at least, such a grossly outdated truth that it might as well be a lie.

The truth is this:

Questworld has RAN OUT of quests.

Hemmling Town has had functioning goblin-free sewers for five years. Granny Sorrel has enough herbs to use for twenty, and she'll surely only last another two or three. Bloodridge Spire is absolutely stuffed with teddy bears.

The wars are over, and the evil things have slithered off to other lands.

There's simply nothing worthwhile to do for adventurers and heroes like yourselves.

Now, we can understand that this may not be an ideal situation for you, given you've dedicated your lives to thriving in bad times. Some of you may even have wanted to do genuine good. Either way, the riches and the karma will not be forthcoming.

It may also be that you've arrived here by one-way portal fuelled by sacrifice of rare demonic bosses, and now of course find yourself all out of rare demonic bosses. Perhaps, like 63.76% of Registered Questworld Questers, you've escaped from an old and frankly insecure prison facility in your home realm that you had just woken up in, with, of course, no discernable reason as to why you should be there. We're all upstanding citizens here after all.

It is because of this that we hesitate to suggest that if you are to continue this trade you should consider refraining from joining the ridiculously overcrowded and underpaid defenders of this world and just go home.

But if you can, do.

If you can't, go onwards towards through the gateway and proceed to the Questers' Registration Hall, just past Betty's Pretty Tearoom in the village of Happiness. Please try not be alarmed by the high levels of mirth you may encounter. We'll try to find something for you to do. It is our job, as you will soon discover.

Whatever you do, make sure you take the left fork past the hills. To the right, there's like, twenty leagues of pleasant, fertile fields and overly cheery farmers. That way would only make the sense of uselessness you should already feel ten times worse.

On your way to registration, kindly take note of the little stall you find conveniently nestled in the two-foot diameter tunnel you take under the first hill. As the dozens of buxom maidens wedged in there will be delighted to tell you, it may be worth your while making a small donation to our friends the Namechangers Lobby.

By our divinations, renaming Questworld to Laughterland may reduce your future competition here by up to two-thirds. The King of Tripeak only wants you all around scratching a pittance from collecting squirrel pelts just in case some bother with town ragamuffins crops up again. Or for if that titanic shadowlord massing an army of undead deep in the Thirteenth Cell decides to get off its enormous rump and make good on its promise to swarm the world with death and burn every living creature in the Hive to ash.

Pretty selfish of the king if you ask us.