Although not magical in nature, Skater knew his attack would have an effect on the creature. When elementals manifested on the physical plane, they became vulnerable to physical attacks. Bullets and launched weapons wouldn’t touch them, Trey had once explained during a venture not so long ago, nor anything that was activated without an attacker’s personal skill behind it. Swords and knives worked, but generally elementals could merely shrug off the effects of those; the same for throwing axes and arrows from bows that weren’t crossbows. A crossbow tended to be too independent of a user’s will, where a bow took real skill to use. And courage to stand in the face of such a foe.