Nick Fails the Nick Tests

Nick Kremp looked enough like Nick to make the wrongness worse. He was cheerful, performative, and eager to help. He offered the party a reward bag from farm supplies, then demonstrated a bonus-action Fireball item called Firestarter. On the surface, it was exactly the kind of absurd usefulness the party might have wanted from him. Ash did not trust the surface. He tested Nick with old memories and catchphrases. Nick failed to remember trifling wizard. He said fireball instead of flame on. Those were small things only if a person did not understand how identity survives in habits, jokes, and the exact stupid words friends remember after death. The reward bag contained five healing potions, a Speak with Dead scroll, a Fireball scroll, and a Haste scroll. Useful. Too useful, maybe. Nick also said I.J. and P.B. were inside or nearby and safer at the farm, leaning on explanations that kept pointing away from direct clarity. The party did not have proof. They had evidence. This Nick could participate in the role. He could smile, offer fire, and say familiar names. But he could not pass the checks that mattered most to the people who had known him.