Maurise decided to name his latest magical contraption the "Death Compass." True to its rather literal name, its core function was exactly that: pointing toward death. More specifically, it was calibrated to zero in on areas choked with a heavy concentration of necrotic energy.
According to Maurise's theoretical framework, graveyards, mass burial sites, or places where a creature had recently met a grisly end were all prime targets for the needle.
To achieve this morbid GPS tracking, he had painstakingly engraved the ancient runes for "Death" and "Guidance" as the foundation. He then peppered in a few meticulously adjusted auxiliary runes and seamlessly blended them with several localized magical theories. The result was a surprisingly elegant, albeit highly questionable, piece of magical hardware.
Why go through all this trouble? The answer was purely practical. He needed a steady supply of fresh corpses and sturdy bones to reanimate into undead minions. Buying ready-made skeletons on the black market was not only legally dubious but also exorbitantly expensive. The cost to performance ratio was utterly atrocious.
Therefore, Maurise's most logical option was to personally go grave robbing.
Wait, no, that sounded terrible. He was simply harvesting localized organic materials for independent magical research. Yes, that sounded much more academic.
With a self-satisfied nod at his own dedication to the magical arts, Maurise channeled a surge of magic into the compass. The needle, which had been resting vaguely toward the south, gave a violent tremor and began to spin at a dizzying, frantic pace.
Two solid minutes passed. The needle was still performing a flawless imitation of a helicopter rotor, showing absolutely zero intention of stopping.
Maurise stroked his chin, lost in thought. The constant spinning likely meant there were no areas of concentrated death aura nearby.
This made perfect sense. He was standing in the middle of Hogwarts Castle, a premier educational institution, not a haunted catacomb.
So, where within walking distance could he find a massive accumulation of animal carcasses? The answer practically screamed at him: The Forbidden Forest.
It was a sprawling ecosystem teeming with dangerous magical creatures, all strictly adhering to the primal law of the jungle.
Death was a daily occurrence in those dense woods. Finding a few stray beast skeletons should not be much of a challenge.
---
Saturday morning arrived with a gloomy, overcast sky and a biting, damp mist hanging heavy in the air.
Taking advantage of the fact that most sane students were still snoring in their warm beds, Maurise officially set off for the forest. Backpack secured, he brought along his two trusty familiars: Tin and Cinder. To avoid unwanted attention, he took a wide detour, slipping into the tree line from the edge of the grounds near the Whomping Willow.
As they ventured deeper, the towering, ancient trees quickly swallowed the silhouette of the castle behind them, and the morning light dimmed into a perpetual twilight.
Returning to this mysterious woodland put an extra spring in Maurise's step. He turned to his pets with a serious expression.
"Alright, you two, keep your eyes peeled," Maurise instructed in a hushed tone. "Cinder, take to the sky. If you spot anything bigger than a squirrel heading our way, let me know immediately." He had zero desire to cross paths with another grumpy Centaur patrol.
Cinder bobbed her feathered head in understanding, spread her wings, and glided silently into the canopy. Tin trotted ahead, sniffing the underbrush and circling the perimeter with a vigilant stance.
With his sentries deployed, Maurise returned his attention to the compass in his hand. He fed it another pulse of magic.
This time, the reaction was vastly different from his castle experiment. The needle spun a few times before locking firmly onto a specific direction, quivering slightly as if eager to lead the way.
Wand drawn and gripped tightly, Maurise proceeded with extreme caution. The winter woods carried a bone chilling cold. The crunch of decaying leaves beneath his boots and the distant, sporadic cries of hidden birds somehow made the forest feel even more eerily silent.
After nearly ten minutes of cautious trekking, the compass finally signaled they had arrived. The needle began to emit a faint, icy glow.
Right on cue, Cinder swooped down from the canopy, landing gracefully on a low hanging branch next to him.He gave a soft, urgent hoot and pointed forward with the tip of his wing.
"Are you saying there is a group of animals ahead that you do not recognize?" Maurise whispered.
Cinder nodded emphatically.
Maurise immediately softened his footsteps. He used the thick shadows of the ancient tree trunks to creep forward, ready to cast his Shadow Hiding spell at the first sign of genuine danger.
Parting a thick veil of bushes, he found himself looking into a relatively wide clearing. A short distance away stood five or six breathtakingly beautiful, pure white horses. Their forms were graceful, radiating an aura of ethereal lightness.
Now, Maurise was no equestrian expert. But he was fairly certain that even the world's most snobbish horse appraiser would weep tears of joy at the sight of them.
The most striking detail, however, was the spiraling, pearlescent horn protruding from the center of each creature's forehead.
Unicorns.
Maurise recognized them instantly. He had pored over enough library tomes to know the lore. They were immensely powerful, exceedingly rare magical creatures known to possess a strong affinity for pure hearted individuals, particularly young maidens.
Maurise was fully aware of his own standing. While he considered himself a tremendously pure and upstanding individual in his own unique way, he was under no illusion that a herd of unicorns would agree with his self assessment.
His assumption was proven violently correct just a moment later.
The herd detected the uninvited guest. They all snapped their heads toward the bushes in perfect unison. Their large, intelligent eyes were swirling with a potent mix of vigilance, boiling anger, and a profound, underlying sorrow.
The vigilance and anger were clearly directed at Maurise. The sorrow, however, was meant for the creature they had been standing in a protective circle around.
It was another unicorn, or rather, the corpse of one. Its coat lacked the vibrant luster of the others, and its horn had grown dull and gray, heavily implying it had peacefully passed away from old age.
This was undeniably the jackpot his Death Compass had sniffed out.
Unfortunately, Maurise had zero seconds to examine his prize. The alpha of the herd let out a piercing, furious neigh, stomped its hooves against the frozen earth, and transformed into a streak of silver light, charging straight at him.
The rest of the herd instantly followed suit, thundering across the clearing like a magical cavalry charge.
Maurise did not even bother to hesitate. He spun on his heels and bolted, flicking his wand wildly over his shoulder.
"Impedimenta!" he shouted.
A powerful, invisible barrier materialized in the path of the galloping herd.
It was a completely futile effort. The lead unicorn lowered its head, and the pearlescent horn pierced the magic shield like a bullet through wet paper. The barrier shattered instantly. The Impediment Jinx had not even managed to slow their momentum by a fraction of a second.
Panic flared in Maurise's chest. There was no way his short, purely human legs were going to outrun a stampede of enraged murder horses. It was time to pull out the heavy artillery.
"Kruk... Tak... Gûl! (Bone-calling!)"
Following his crisp incantation, dozens of bone spikes, each as thick as a human forearm, materialized out of thin air. They hovered around him, glinting with a deadly, pale light.
With a deafening swoosh, the bone projectiles launched forward, raining down upon the approaching herd like a hailstorm of death.
What happened next completely shattered Maurise's expectations.
The unicorns moved with impossible agility. They bobbed and weaved through the dense barrage of flying bones with almost casual grace. Maurise could barely track their movements, only catching glimpses of white blurs dodging the lethal rain.
When the dust settled and the spell ended, not a single unicorn had fallen. The most severe injury he had managed to inflict was a minor graze on one of their flanks.
Maurise let out a breathless, exasperated sigh. That speed was simply absurd. He had always assumed unicorns were gentle, somewhat fragile creatures of light. Clearly, the textbook authors had never been on the receiving end of a very pointy, very angry stampede.
With his offensive options exhausted, only one tactical maneuver remained.
Run away.
Without wasting another breath, Maurise activated his Shadow Hiding technique, melting seamlessly into the dark crevices of the forest undergrowth. High above, Cinder took the cue, flapping her wings furiously to vanish over the canopy, while Tin scurried into the brush.
The herd of unicorns skidded to a halt. The wicked, bone throwing intruder had vanished into thin air. They paced the edge of the bushes, stamping their hooves and letting out bewildered, frustrated neighs.
'Bet you did not expect that', Maurise chuckled silently to himself from the safety of the dark void.
After several minutes of fruitless searching, the majestic creatures finally gave up. They turned their backs on the empty woods and trotted away, leaving the forest quiet once more.