Five_X

Back in February, EXiku and I departed on a secret, dangerous, and possibly deadly mission, out in the field. We were to meet with the man himself, the Grand Vizier of Merchandise, the Don of the Type-Museum, the infamous and insatiable Strife212. It was a dark day, one that we could never prepare ourselves for.

If you are reading this... consider it a warning.

As a precaution, we met him outside of his natural habitat. Strife, it seems, is not from London; we used this to our advantage, as in order to survive in the extreme crowds and (to outsiders) confusing transit system, he was forced to let us remain alive, at least for the time being.



We were to spend the day at the British Museum - a heavy risk, but the prize...

None of us were too familiar with the British Museum, but we knew its reputation. I'd hoped that it would make Strife worried, seeing a collection that could perhaps rival his own. However, he didn't even flinch, even as I spent a good hour or two in the Greek/Roman/Zoroastrian exhibits, carefully taking pictures of just about every square inch of the premises. It was all a stalling method, in order to ensure that Strife would be off-guard.

It didn't work.

Here's a strangely happy Etruscan guy:



After meandering through the Greco-Roman rooms and briefly saying hello to the ancient Middle East, we decided that we were hungry. Unfortunately for us, the Museum was filled with over-priced and fairly average food, so it wasn't that great. On the other hand, though, EXiku and I got to spend some time chatting with Strife, in order to learn his secrets, and how he manages to acquire so many goods. It was not easy prying those from him, but we managed... the techniques used will not be recorded here, or anywhere.

Apparently Strife doesn't actually have tons of money, but in truth he's just good at saving it all up and not spending too much. Also, he says that he's very very lucky and manages to come across a lot of things by chance. How true this is, we may never know.



Afterwards, with food in our bellies and money out of our greedy little pockets, we went downstairs because that's where the Rosetta Stone is, in the middle of the Egypt section, where the big Pharaoh guy above hangs out. Of course, since it's the Rosetta Stone it's naturally surrounded by some of the biggest crowds in the entire British Museum, and we were there on a particularly nice Saturday.

As a result, I only managed to get an extremely bad photo of one of the greatest archaeological discoveries in all history, through light-reflecting glass. I swear, it's like they don't even want you to take pictures.



I later bought a cool little 800 piece puzzle of the Rosetta Stone, it's a total money grab souvenir but it's so cool.

Going through there, we got to see the Elgin Marbles, some chunks of the Parthenon that the perfidious Brits managed to snag while that whole Greek War for Independence thing was going on. Sadly, there weren't any impoverished Greek protesters demanding there cultural heritage back and we just took pictures of Greek dudes wrestling erotically with centaurs. That's the sort of thing I'd put on my ancient war memorial, definitely. At least the anatomical details were superb, though.

By that point we were kind of running out of time, and we went up to see the second part of the Egypt display, the one with all the sarcophagi and such. Unfortunately a whole half of it was blocked off for "renovations" and we only spent a short period of time in there.

The last part of the Museum that we checked out was the section on Japanese history, which was a tad small but very interesting and informative. It's way up on one of the highest floors and kind of out of the way, though, so not too many people probably see it or go to it. I'm sure that Strife was examining it closely, making sure that there was nothing he could steal or otherwise acquire through dubiously legal means. And no, if you're wondering, there was nothing in the Japanese exhibit about anime, if you're wondering if they put that in the art section of something.

That was the end of the day and, sadly, we had to part ways with this dashing and mysterious serial killer.

We said our goodbyes in the dusty Underground, with Strife having not managed to kill us - yet. He was about to run away when we managed to snap this last-minute photograph of him, taken by a nice lady who passed by and realized we were awkwardly trying to take a selfie with a big, professional camera. I thank her, at least, for not stealing it.



Left to right: EXiku, myself, and Strife. You can see the murder in his eyes.

Thanks for hanging out, Strife! You're a pretty cool guy.

Oh - and for those wondering or who don't yet know, this does mean I'm in the UK. Rather permanently, in fact! I'm here on a two-year visa and I'm living happily with EXiku. It's a terrible place and sometimes I wish it was more like Canada and that the timezones were less abhorrent and clashing with the rest of the modern world (USA)... but then I remember that cellphones are stupidly cheap here, the transit is convenient, Europe is a light jog away and the best of British comedy is right there on the television.