The Magician's Assistant

5

The light quickly dimmed down until it was indistinguishable from the one Gramps held. It provided enough light to illuminate the fallen form of the bushranger, but not much else.

No one said anything for what felt like an eternity. Gramps kept a finger aimed at the bushranger.

"I think you got it," Rachael said softly.

"For its sake, I hope I did," Gramps replied.

Rachael slowly approached the bushranger. She couldn't find any new injuries on the creature's body, but it was completely motionless. A few feet behind the bushranger, a small ditch, just a few inches across and deep, had been dug into the ground.

Rachael didn't let go of the rock, but her grip on it relaxed slightly.

"Don't get too close. They carry countless diseases," Gramps said.

"Trust me, I'm staying far away," Rachael said.

The bushranger smelled even worse than it had before. Somehow, it looked different than it had a moment before. Rachael wasn't sure what had changed about it.

Gramps slowly approached the carcass alongside Rachael.

"I decided to kill it outright. It's safer that way," he said.

"I'm not complaining," Rachael said.

As Rachael continued to stare at the dead bushranger, she noticed its skin getting darker. There were large holes in its skin that hadn't been there before. As she watched, more and more skin slowly disapeared.

"What's happening to it?" Rachael asked, staring at the bizarre display.

"It's decomposing," Gramps said, unfazed.

"More like it's disintegrating. What the hell is happening to it?"

"Undead are made of materials that are supposed to be rotting. Magic holds off the inevitable decay, but when it fails, it fails catastrophically. What you're seeing right now is millions of bacteria that have been held off until now all springing into action at once,"

By the time Gramps had finished his explanation, most of the bushranger's skin was already gone. Rachael finally tore her eyes away, disgusted.

Gramps put a hand on his chin and silently watched the bushranger. If he shared Rachael's disgust, he didn't show it.

"Its construction could use work. It looks like several animal carcasses turned into a vaguely human form," he said, before crouching down to get a better look.

"Yeah, they could have made it less ugly, or done something about that smell," Rachael said, pinching her nose.

"That will be gone soon enough, I'm sure. It's sturdier than I'd expect, but still sub par. They did a horrible job with locomotion as well. I'd call it apprentice level work overall," Gramps said, sounding almost excited.

Rachael reached into a pocket in her dress and pulled out Gramps' coin purse. She held it out towards him.

Gramps looked away from the bushranger for a moment.

"What's that?" he asked.

"Your money. You left it in my store," Rachael replied.

"Oh, thank you. You can just set it down for a moment, please,"

Gramps turned back to the bushranger and continued to talk, mostly to himself, about it.

Rachael forced herself to suppress the wave of anger and annoyance that washed over her.