No presure at all!

Morning found us in a small clearing, where I was busy fashioning what I hoped would be our secret weapons. Not traditional weapons - those hadn't worked out so well last time - but tools designed based on my theory about the lion's fur.

"Hold still," I told Iolaus as I wrapped his arms in strips of leather we'd treated with pine resin. "If I'm right about the directional grip, these should help us get a better hold on the lion's fur." I'd spent the last two hours experimenting with different materials, trying to find something that would create the right amount of friction.

"You know," Iolaus said, watching me work, "normal heroes just grab their swords and charge in. They don't usually spend hours making sticky hand wraps and drawing diagrams in the dirt."