(INVISIBLE INK, TO BE ATTACHED TO THE REGISTRATION HALL AGAIN. GOOD LUCK.)

So, you’ve decided to join. Hooray for us! If things have gone right, then you can read this magic ink now. If not, well, you’ll just have to pay another gold coin and hope the imps aren’t too drunk to remember your name this time.

Here’s your first bit of help. Take heed of what you take into the registration hall. Some items from other realms are banned from Questworld.

Why register at all, you’re thinking? Well, whether you know it or not, you’ve been getting tracked since the moment you crossed the Great Gateway. Hurry up and pay your Adventuring License fee (five gold), your Weapon Accountability Declaration (two gold) and set up your Royal Reward Contribution (free for now, but you didn’t think you’d be getting your hands on ALL of that silver piece for cleaning that stove, did you?).

If you don’t, then the tracking stays. And that means the guards will be swarming you for leagues around as soon as you leave the village of Happiness. Whether there should be guards there or not. They’re not afraid of a bit of running. And you don’t want those seven-hours stretches in the country jails. Some don’t even have the cushion upgrades yet.

Don’t have the seven gold? Well, you should have thought about that before you had any way of knowing. What will become of you? If you can’t go on to a different realm, you’ll just have to submit to the hall. Where do you think all those dead-eyed golem-like slobs facing you across the desk come from? Nobody wants to be in here talking to you when they could be out in the sun frolicking.

If you can move on, then go somewhere dangerous, whip up the seven gold and then - if you can do that so easily, just stay where you are. You haven’t been paying attention, and thanks for the free gold from your wasted membership.

Anyway, the registration itself should be an easy if agonisingly tedious process. What we want to war you Union members about is the item declarations. Some things are banned here.

Before you go in, here’s a list of banned things we’ve found out about:

* Arcane hand grenades: banned because they’re so blooming overpowered. If any real danger crops up, like that awful shadowlord, then using these grenades won’t allow for any decent songs in the centuries of peace that would follow. We need a struggle for that.

* Ashain artifacts: Any weapon or piece of armour from the notorious Ashain Empire. You can tell your item is from there by the little trademark that will say Made in the Ashain Empire, or on weapons by the dark crimson staining of of the blood of millions of slaughtered decent folk. Many people and creatures fled the empire to take refuge in Questworld, and they don’t need the reminder. Also, Ashain weapons generate an uncontrollable bloodlust aura around the wielder, so they may otherwise not need to remember for much longer.

* Knobbly items: Armour with uneven surfaces, and uneven maces, etc. have recently been banned from Questworld by order of the Royal Tripeak Hospital. Costs for sores produced by days of walking round fruitlessly searching for something to do with these knobbly things have tripled in the last two years, and quite honestly they’re getting sick of treating you.

* Silken robes: Silk from without the Hive has been banned due to market deals. The entire Twenty-First Cell of the Hive has been granted to the Sanctuary of Associated Cave Spiders, Wiggly Worms and Other Generally Disliked Creepy Crawlies who quickly declared allegiance to Tripeak when the more powerful beasts preferred by adventurers became extinct. Part of the alliance deal was a trade monopoly for the sanctuary on all silk production, but in compensation you will be handed a sweet 20% deal on your first robe purchase in your registration welcome pack.

* Green weapons and armour: Because the king doesn’t like green and he’s an arrogant self-centred pillock.

Pretty much everything else goes.

If you do have any items on the list, then we have some bad news for you: there’s no way round the ban. Were you really expecting us to offer some sort of secret stash where you could collect them later? We’re just four drunks in a pub, mate. Now you’re a member, you might as well know the truth.

BUT... we do have something useful to say. Do not enter the hall yet. Just to the left of this scroll, you’ll see a dark and forbidding alley.

Go down the dark and forbidding alley.

At the end, you’ll see an iron grate in the floor. As you approach, it will open, and a shady-looking gentleman will emerge.

Give him your banned items, and he shall give you coinage.

We don’t have a clue who he is, or if he’s working with a vast underground organisation striving to overthrow the Hive and plunge the world into chaos, but at least you’ll get a few gold if you’re lucky. And with that gold, you can bed down for a few nights after registration and bide your time.

And biding your time’s all you’ll be doing anyway. Might as well be comfy doing it.