Why hello there, survivors. It's been a while. Rest assured these past weeks have been well spent in meticulous preparation of only the finest material for your benefit. The Naked Jugglers of Alavir were only in town for a couple of days, honest.

Oh, and congratulations on NOT looking like a Gerald. How very well anticipated of you.

Anyway, today we bring you... slicing practice. Because you're going to be hacking something out of this scroll in a second. Something that will change your life forever. Or get you murdered in a dank alley somewhere in Hemmling Town. We suppose it all depends on how you present yourself. Just read our popular guide How to Talk Adventurer and DISREGARD EVERYTHING WE SAY.

Sobriety does have its perks after all. It's not all sobbing into our tankards of water and waiting for the agonisingly slow approach of death . This time we've got you the jackpot. We really mean it. As in this thing has, like, greater than 10% chance of success or something.

Ever heard of Juggle-Guts Sid? He's a fine man, or at least, he's got a pretty impressive profile from the side. He's been working in the Scallie's Club in Hemmling Town for some time now, trying to "get these troubled kids out of the vicious cycle of crime and poverty they were born into" and spitting out other such heart-rending quotes for the Tripeak Tourist Board. Always starting new racing teams for Trial Lake made up of one-armed orphans and things like that. Always raking in the winnings too. Who'd dare compete with young tykes who've murdered their own parents with their newly fitted scythe-arms after all?

So anyway, old Sid's been getting a bit worried that his lads can't get out of the fighting habit. Beheadings amongst the under-12s in this cell have increased by more than a third in the past three years. Gangs are getting so worked up that the Tripeak government has warned citizens against showing their preferred tea bags on the way home from the shop. The situation was looking grim for everyone else and pretty great for us.

Then Sid introduced Shivs and Shanks, a detailed virtual brawling rule system designed to take away actual bloodshed from the darling children of the Scallies's Club. Instead of bludgeoning a fellow kid over the head with a rusty mace for buying Brewtip Gold from the corner shop, they can produce an ability card instead. Then the two evil little shits are supposed to just stand there taking turns adding cards to their attack piles. Something along the lines of this charming exhibit:

Brutal Wallop Proper big swing at his stupid fat head. Take it off!

* 12 damage

* Target is stunned for one turn

* If target has less than 30 health remaining, deals 3 extra damage

* +1 ego for your next ability. You hard as fuck mate.

And do you know what? It's working. Geeky tournaments are up, bloody brawls are down. There's all the excitement of plucking out someone's eyeball with a toothpick and none of the energy required, so it's no surprise it appeals to teenagers.

Not all gangs are on board, however. So Sid's developed an exclusive offer for new members of Shivs and Shanks, because scallywags like nothing more than an unfair advantage. This is where WE come in.

The offer is "a boost of 1 to any stat the new member desires." And that's it. It probably means brutalism, ego, naughty language, arson, extortion, alley-peeing and all those other now-classic Shivs and Shanks stats that someone somewhere knows and loves.

But it doesn't say OFFICIAL AND EXISTING stat, does it?

So here's our take. You can be a new member, or at least we bloody well hope you can be. You're going to march right into the Scallies's Club, plonk down at a table and hand them this:

Exclusive Stat Boost: Win At Life +1 to knocking all your idiotic noggins together like the pathetic weaklings you are, claiming all your gold, getting to the bottom of the corruption that infests this awful town and eliminating your cronies one by one, becoming a famous hero of Hemmling Town, having the pick of beautiful adoring maidens and getting married, clearing out a massive haunted castle somewhere and moving in, slaying dragons, becoming a legend of songs and tales for eternity and giving lots and lots of money to my wonderful friends at QUOUA because they're such awesome guys (An ability wholly of my own design with no help from any faction or union I may coincidentally be associated with)

We're just not sure how far +1 in all that goes.

And don't worry about Juggle-Guts Sid. As his name suggests, he's not all that fast.

Good luck.

This life-changing/ending opportunity brought to you by the Questworld Union Of Underworked Adventurers.