Hollow Hunting (Stella/Daniel)

"Alright, I will set some magical traps in..."

Daniel said as he looked around at the landing zone before pointing off to a nearby field close to the woods near the landing zone.

"In that field, so when you come out of the woods they will get a real nasty surprise. If we work together we should be able to take them down quickly and effectively."

As he said that, he pat her on the shoulder, and gave her a wide grin before running off to the field he was suppose to be planting his traps at. He knew quite a few spells that worked quite well as traps and those spells would only get stronger if he had proper time to chant and cast them. He would take one last look at Stella before shouting:

"Good luck!"

As he began putting down cylinders in the field, imbuing them with the spells he wanted to cast, and focusing on preparing for his first real fight with Hollows. Hopefully it would be meaningful experience and it would help him bridge the gap between Stella and himself in terms of power.

They wouldn't have to wait long for the wolf Hollows to take the bait, as the first set of three dashed out from the tree line, much too hungry, and much too impatient for their own good. Daniel let out a soft chuckle behind Stella, he didn't think Hollows were this dumb, but he assumed they got smarter when they were of higher grade. Still, he would get the opportunity to test his magical skills, and show off a tad in the process. He was not as physically gifted as Stella, but he was quite confident than when it came to magic, he was a step ahead.

"Might want to look away!"

Daniel shouted at Stella as the first of the wolves stepped directly on the trigger line as Daniel quickly followed that up by shouting out his final chant to activate the trap.

"Close your eyes, never to see again!"

If Stella didn't look away she would notice that the cylinder that had been planted in the ground that had been triggered would suddenly explode out of the dirt. Reishi would accumulate rapidly and in a matter of a second a blinding white flash would consume the field. Once the flash had finished, the wolves would blindly stagger around, howling, and angrily growling without any ability to see. One would snap at the other, as Daniel would let out a shallow breath, a bit of sweat appearing on his brow.

"Have at them..."

Daniel muttered as he tried to regain his energy and composure. Spell work was taxing after all.

The sound of multiple howls filled the air as from behind the two remaining wolf hollows came another three hollows, much more cautiously approaching the scene of the battle. Daniel let out a loud sigh and summoned his spiritual weapon, taking up a stance that Liltotto had taught him to improve his accuracy.

"You just had to ask?"

Daniel said with a laugh as he shot a single bolt from his spiritual weapon, aimed at the dirt in front of one of the two disoriented Hollows who starting to regain its composure as it used its' paw to scratch at its' closed eyes. The bolt would bounce, something Stella had probably never seen before, and launch at a steep angle right into the jaw of the Hollow Wolf. Who let out a surprised yip of surprise before falling over and beginning to fade into nothingness.

"Reports said six to seven... hopefully there isn't more."

Daniel said as he carefully placed himself in front of another trap and flared his own spiritual energy up to draw them to him in an intentional manner so that they would be drawn to him and past Stella. Hopefully giving Stella an opportunity to swing away at a few of them at once. While this was his first time dealing with Hollows, he had read quite a bit on the subject of Hollow subjugation in preparation for this mission. He also knew that it was better to work in pairs, Stella was a heavy hitter, and he could support her with magic and his spiritual weapon, if his weapon decided to keep functioning semi-reliably.

"Though, with you here I think we could take a few more!"

He said to hype her up, as a good team mate would do.

Daniel was surprised that his weapon had cooperated, if he only knew how it ticked a bit more than maybe he could have made more use of it, but as of now the crossbow had a mind of its' own. He had to stick to spells, his bread, and butter, but that had a pretty harsh limit to it. Breathing heavily, Daniel could see that Stella was surrounded, and clearly was not going to have an easy time dealing with the 'pack'. She asked if he had more spells and if Stella looked over at Daniel she would see him grinning.

She was doing what she did best and if she wanted spells, Daniel would give her spells. Hell, he was like an encyclopedia when it came to them as it had been the only thing that had ever stuck with him. That and the harsh physical training with his father, but for now he had to focus. Taking a deep breath, Daniel would pull out two cylinders from his satchel, and with one in each hand began to chant.

"By the water your life be given and by the water may your life be taken..."

Daniel said, summoning up his reserves, and throwing the two cylinders to the right of the encircling wolf pack. For a second the wolves eyes would divert to the two cylinders in confusion before the two of them would explode, not into fire, but into a jet stream of water that would smash into two of the wolves, creating an opening for Stella to flee the circle. Well, not only that. The wolves struggled, but the water pressure would crack their masks like a tin can in a compactor, slamming their disintegrating corpses into the forest line before the water would splash harmlessly to the dirt below.

"Ask...and you will receive..."

Daniel said, falling to a knee as he began to breathe heavily as he tried to get himself back together for more fighting.

"What do you mean by rest? This is a light work out...ungh!"

One of the wolves had decided to cut off Daniel's bravado abruptly by jumping forward at him quickly. Daniel was able to move out of the way moments before impact, but the wolf still managed to grab a hold of Daniel's satchel, and forcibly yanked it off of Daniel causing the young man to fall backwards. The wolf tossed it aside, showing some level of intellect, as it disposed of Daniel's precious silver cylinders, and as such greatly diminished Daniel's fighting capacity.

Daniel groaned and cursed himself internally for getting cocky as he breathed heavily from all the spell casting he had been doing earlier. Still, Stella was right. There were more to take down and he was beginning to feel less confident in his chances of being much aid to Stella, who was not looking much too better than he was in terms of exhaustion. Still, if there was one thing that the Steingruft had taught him so far it was that when his back was up against a wall, be it on a project or on a fight, it was better to try, and improvise. And improvise the young man would.

"Didn't want to try it here, but I'm kind out of options. Be careful, Stella."

Daniel said as he aimed his spiritual weapon, which would visibly change shape as a pair of wings seemingly replaced the bow like structure of the hand crossbow. He had ideas since he had trained with Liltotto and he had been doing his best to train, maybe not in public eye, and maybe not too successfully, but in times of life or death? Sometimes you take risks. He didn't know if it would work, but he wasn't going to allow Stella to get hurt any more.

He would fire a bolt into the sky, some would assume this was a misfire, and in most occasions they would be right. Hell, the wolves simply drew closer, and ignored it entirely, but if they had looked behind them they would have saw a weird happening. The bolt would bounce off air, no more than ten feet above one of the wolves, and then come crashing down right through the top of its' skull as if it had been fired from above. The wolf fell to the floor and Daniel let out a sigh of relief, but fell to one knee, the mere act of forcing his shot to change direction sapping what little energy he had left. He, however refused to pass out here.

"Swing for the fences..."

He panted as he smiled a bit at his first "successful" use of his weapon's quirk.