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Over the years, I've had many friends. Some of these friendships have been like bottles of fine wine - stored in ideal conditions in a temperature-controlled room, and slowly increasing in value every year. Other friendships have been fleeting *- a few beers thrown in the picnic cooler of life. And some friendships were little more than a couple of shots at the bar - a brief, fleeting flirtation that burned the throat with its intensity, but was forgotten within hours. This is a story about one such friend. A friend that I danced and fought with for with many hours, a friend who was surprisingly unreliable, and yet also a friend who was exactly what I needed at the time. But now his face only exists as a hazy half-developed Polaroid memory of a night elegantly wasted. His name was Negalmuur, and he was a necromancer in the Stilshrine of Miriam.*This is how we met.
It was late 2006, and I was a freelance journalist desperate for work, so when the phone rang and Official PlayStation 2 Magazine offered me the chance to review Final Fantasy 12, I bit their hand off. Figuratively. There were only two conditions. Firstly, I'd have to do it*in five days, as they were about to go to print. Secondly, they wanted the 'definitive' review, so if I managed to complete the whole game, they'd give me a £200 bonus. As this represented a sum of money that was literally mind-boggling to me at the time, I agreed, despite never having played a Final Fantasy game to completion before. The editor shipped the game over to me, and I began preparations to sit in my room for a week, stocking up on important things like rations, energy drinks and Clockwork Orange-style eye clamps.*
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