Docs: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EaaVyJWSr4MWFyCREwVIuc8aE8hOEbCnQ5B31P5tQU0

After each successful swap, wait 24 hours before using it again to avoid verification and keep the bonus rate.

The first completed transaction has consistently gone through, and there appears to be no maximum amount—only the one-use-per-24-hours limit.

It was true! This boy had been the loyal friend and guardian of the young Man in the Moon. He had protected the Prince from nightmares, and his diamond dagger had pierced Pitch’s black heart at the height of the great battle. It was this act that caused the great explosion that saved the Man in the Moon and sent Pitch’s galleon plummeting to Earth, where it had crashed like a meteor and lay hidden deep under the ground for centuries. This spectral boy was a true hero.

Nicholas Saint North and the Battle of the Nightmare King Chapter 24

THE DJINNI HAD BECOME the undisputed center of excitement in the village. It was able to do almost any task it was asked. “Djinni, can you move these boulders?” asked one of Old William’s sons, Not-as-Old William. “I was thinking of making a new tower.”

“As you command,” replied the mechanical man, and in minutes it had assembled, quite artfully, the hulking stones into a splendid tower, complete with turrets.

Nicholas Saint North and the Battle of the Nightmare King Chapter 15

Docs: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EaaVyJWSr4MWFyCREwVIuc8aE8hOEbCnQ5B31P5tQU0

After each successful swap, wait 24 hours before using it again to avoid verification and keep the bonus rate.

The first completed transaction has consistently gone through, and there appears to be no maximum amount—only the one-use-per-24-hours limit.

Just as the wizard thought he was going to make it—he found he suddenly had no control over his mouth. It felt . . . frozen. Then the icy feeling spread to his face, then shoulders, until his whole body was stiff and paralyzed, and it was shrinking, shrinking. He fell to the ground with a small thud. Followed by a second one. North. The two found themselves suddenly lying in the snow, unable to move.

The djinni looked down at them both. A dark and terrible laugh echoed from deep inside its chest. It was a laugh like no other. It was the laugh of Pitch.

“May I be your apprentice too, Master Ombric?” he snarled. “I learned your spells of enslavement quickly enough!” North struggled to look over at Ombric, but he couldn’t even blink. Then he began to realize that he wasn’t just paralyzed. “You’re my slaves now!” gloated the djinni. “My little puppets.”

He looked down proudly at his mechanical creation. At nearly eight feet tall, it was shaped like a man but built entirely of metal gears and clockwork, all in shades of metal—silver, bronze, copper, gold, and darker tones like gunmetal and iron. It was strangely beautiful, like something that hadn’t been made but had been dreamed into being. Around the chest, shoulders, and joints were plates that resembled armor but with intricate, graceful curves. The face and head were simply shaped, yet had a handsomeness that recalled a finely made toy. One slim silver key protruded from the area over the heart—that’s how North intended to wind up the djinni, he’d explained to the children.

All told, there was a wondrous quality about it that surprised them all, especially North. He’d built weapons and shields before. But the robot djinni was designed to do only good, and it looked the part.

North fastened the last chest plate over the treasure box, then turned the silver key five, six, seven times. There was a soft, almost musical whir of sound, then the robot djinni sat up. It looked at them with a curious expression, not of surprise, but as if it had been expecting to see them, and appeared to smile. North and the children erupted in cheers.

But he was pleased to see that North was in the process of double-checking their gear for the trip. They were bringing a vast array of instruments, books, elixirs, potions, and weapons, but everything fit in a smallish backpack. He called it his “infinity bag”—he designed it to hold whatever anyone put into it.

“I once packed an entire mountain and castle in it,” he’d explained when North had looked at the satchel skeptically.

It did, however, weigh as much as whatever it contained. “A problem I’ve never been able to solve,” Ombric admitted. “But that’s why your djinni will come in most handy. I assume it can handle the load?”

“Djinni, I want to be able to become invisible!” demanded William the Absolute Youngest.

Sunlight glinted off the djinni’s shoulders. It paused, then, giving a sweeping bow, said, “That is a wish I cannot grant.”

“But why not? You’re supposed to do anything we ask!” said William the Almost Youngest.

The djinni turned to her, and she asked excitedly, “Djinni, can you throw me as high into the air as you can and catch me?”

“As you command,” it answered. And quite effortlessly, it tossed Katherine so high that the villagers lost sight of her. They peered into the sky worriedly, North using a telescope of his own design.

“There she is!” he said at last, pointing to the small bank of clouds Katherine was gleefully skimming over.

Pitch’s spell of enslavement had only partially afflicted Ombric. Like North’s, his physical body had been turned into a toy, but eons ago, Ombric had learned how to separate his mind from his body. He called it “astral projection” and used it only rarely.

“It’s quite risky,” he explained to North. “One can never be entirely sure what the body may be up to while the mind is out and about, and it depletes one’s energy rather severely. I’ll be hungry for months now.” And, in fact, Ombric had been eating provisions from the infinity bag nonstop since he’d returned to his body. He seemed to relish telling North and Katherine about his adventure, for he paced back and forth excitedly.

Nicholas Saint North and the Battle of the Nightmare King Chapter 24