Tales From My 'Niece'

[Malckuss]

This tale is a few years old, from May of 2018. I hope readers of this wall of text will find the story as amusing as I did the morning it happened.

P_ isn't actually my niece; her name is redacted as she is still a minor. However, her father and I have been friends and gaming for longer than I care to admit. Additionally, her mother and I became fast friends as part of her getting to know her husband's friends. I was in the picture when P_ was born, and lil'Miss does indeed call me Uncle Brandon; yes, be afraid, now you know my name.

Occasionally, I spend the night (or the weekend) with the family when we have a gathering or gaming or just feel like it. Being avid gamers, we don't just chuck dice, we also push buttons, and lil'Miss used to avidly watch us do all of that (until she had to go to bed, of course).

One early Saturday morning, P_ woke even earlier than usual. She is used to waking up during the week at 6:00 am so her mother can get her ready and then wait on the bus. So on this morning, she wakes at 6:30 am, which is actually a bit late for her, so she slept in. She wanders into the living room and gives me a hug and a kiss so wet, that I awaken thinking it's the dog (who is also awesome, but that is another story). "Good morning Uncle Brandon. I missed you. Did you miss me?"

"I haven't really had time to miss you, sweetness. I didn't go anywhere, yet." I look at the clock and groan. I only went to bed about 4-5 hours ago, and she usually sleeps until about 8 on the weekends. "What are you doing up?" I mumbled as I drooled on my arm.

She shrugged. "I dunno. I tried to go back to sleep, but I can't. Will you make me some pancakes?"

Her mother takes a dim view of people cooking in her kitchen without her permission and I happen to know they are out of pancake mix.

I satisfied the little girl's hunger with some peanut butter & honey spread on a tortilla, then warmed it briefly in the microwave oven on a plate, and then cut it into quarters. I served them to her with a small glass of milk. I then made myself some coffee; I made strong coffee.

I'm groggy, but I don't want to put Netflix or any other TV on for lil'Miss for a plethora of reasons, some of them selfish. I decide I'm going to wake up fully, slowly, sipping my coffee and twitching buttons.

P_'s father, J_, and I have been playing a great deal of Diablo 3 in seasonal play, but we both recently closed out the season as we had finished everything of interest to us, and started playing our regular characters. P_ would often set there watching us, clutching a broken controller her parents gave her to play with, letting us know who she was playing as (sometimes one of us, sometimes a follower or pet). I had just got through booting the system up when I suddenly had a thought.

I looked at lil'Miss. "Hon, how would like to play with me?"

She looked at me, a little puzzled, already clutching her controller and in her favorite spot, which was almost on top of me. "Play DeeOb-a-Low wih chew? " Glances at the screen, then back at me. "But I am playing with you." She points at the Liv Moore zombie pet I recently scored. Sized next to my female Monk, she thinks it is a little girl.

I fired up a second controller, logged into an account she could use, and set her up to roll her own character. "No, hon. You get to make your own character and everything."
"You mean, I get to really play? With a real controller and everything?"
"Yep, and everything. But you have to listen to me. This might be more difficult than it looks."

I laughed when she decided to play the male Barbarian after I explained the classes. We wouldn't be playing through standard mode with all the inappropriate cinematics, the blood was turned off, etc. but we were going to rush through Adventure mode on Master difficulty to level her quickly.

Sometime later, her mother walked in, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. She asked me her usual question at this hour, "Coffee?" I nodded. I needed more. Always more coffee. When she brought me my steaming cup of Joe, "Is that my daughter playing the Crusader?!" incredulity in her voice.

I sighed. "Yes, because at level 24, she decided she didn't want to play the Barbarian anymore because, and I quote, 'Uncle Brandon, I'm tired of not wearing pants! It just looks silly!"

Her mother works hard to keep from spilling her lava-hot coffee all over herself, but she fails when a moment later I tell her, "She's level 52, and she hasn't died once..."
P_ breaks in, "Because I can turn into a horse," and proceeds to activate her steed power, mounting a horse of fire and proceeding to gallop all over the mobs on the field with a resounding, "Wahoo!"

Lil'Miss and I have played "Deeob-a-low" many times since. She sometimes gets stubborn, and wants to go off in the opposite direction than we need to go, or will just walk. Haltingly. Twitching. The. Thumbstick. However, that stopped when her dad had her sit on his lap and he showed her how much easier and smoother it worked when she ran all over the place. Her Crusader is now Paragon level 33 (characters cap out at level 70, and then gain Paragon levels you can spend on 'backstage' characteristics). The problem is, now she is throwing shade because she hasn't died, even on Torment II (this is mostly due to me or her dad stomping anything that moves close to her when she isn't ready for it).

She told her dad the morning we started playing, "You die all the time, but I never die, because I can mount up on Rainbow Dash and then WEEEEEE!"

Her parents are working on that part.

My dear 'neice' is a bit older now. She did finally die (on a different character she wasn't as familiar with on Torment III), but she still throws shade. She's a funny kid. Not so little, now. She just turned 13. I sometimes miss my lil'buddy, but this new sassy teen has her moments. She has been bugging her mom & dad about playing TTRPGs with us, so I guess that'll be next.

 

[Malckuss]

It's past due for another tale of my 'niece.' This tale has come up often lately as lil'Miss is now a teenager and, of late, has been a bit of a drama queen, but that has been the case for a while, now, especially when she is tired. I like to remind her of this one now as it helps her keep things in perspective.

This tale, too, comes from those halcyon pre-Covid days whence she was 'smoll' and made a very good pillow (a tale for another time). In those days, whenever the house was full of various guests and gaming or other shenanigans were afoot, she understandably was often reluctant to go to bed, as she was very well aware the fun was about to start, once she was no longer conscious.

On this particular evening, some of the fun had already started in the form of movies and some party video games (her father had activated a series of cheats on Grand Theft Auto that turned the game into Maximum Overdrive: The Game; many riotous laughs were had at the poor NPC's expense).

She is driving her mother crazy: Fighting over her dinner (she loves tacos), fighting over her bath (she loves them), fighting about her bedtime story (yep, loves those, too; fought so much over this one she lost out), fighting so much about actually going to bed, her father threatened her with a smiting, a fell whopping of yon hiney, brought on by a declaration that she hated all of us; she spoke like Grima Wormtogue and fibbed!

Her mother tries to mollify her by telling her she will make lil'Miss pancakes in the morning.

This brings out the tears and decrying her fate, how she is so 'unloved' and 'hates it here.'

At this point, the true level of her exhaustion comes to light and things get both weird and wonderful. All in attendance lament that none of us recorded the following, but we have good memories of the event.

Lil'Miss, at this point, wound up on grief coupled with exhaustion declares, vociferously, "I hate everything! I hate...I hate...OWLS! And I hate...MUSKRATS! And...(mumbles something unintelligible into her pillow)...STUPID, TASTY PANCAKES!"

At this remark, we all lose our composure and die laughing; if you read the previous post, you know she loves pancakes, especially her mother's pancakes. She is, in fact, the reason why they are often out of pancake mix.

We have just finished laughing when we suddenly hear lil'Miss snoring louder than ever myself or her father, who uses a C-Pap machine. We die laughing again.

There were pancakes for everyone in the morning; nobody let lil'Miss forget her tirade of the previous evening.

Now, whenever she starts to get tired and fussy, someone will bring the tale up.

She gets a bit upset about the tale, saying, Are you ever gonna let that go?!" I tell her, "Oh, no, hun. You are never going to live that down, not even when you are as old as me!"

And that's old, let me tell you. Older than I ever thought I'd be.