A pulse of dark green blood oozed up from the puncture and ran down over her scales. The Gorgon watched it in fascination, such a strange sight, hardly seemed as if this was coming from her own body. The blood ran down her curving body, and then dripped into the waiting container. It was followed by another, and then a third.

"Perrrrfect, it issss, my sssister. The potion is now complete, and ready for its latest victim." Sibilant laughter followed, as the Enchantress carefully stoppered the potion bottle and shook. "With thessse added ingredients, we have no need to retrieve the Horn from the abomination."

Trapped in his iron cage, Emmanuel Cravtiz kept his hands over his eyes. What a fool he had been. Desperate to escape the curse of lycanthropy that afflicted his town, he had followed the rumor of a cure to this dreadful place. What manner of a cure could this be, he thought. He had seen the fate of another victim, who had drunk the 'latest added ingredients. That poor man. He shuddered at the memory, recalling how the man had screamed as his body convulsed. A grim smiled followed, for the man's last scream was "DIE!" and a Medusa had complied nicely. That poor fellow, a victim of the seventeenth version of the potion, had been lured into a corner of the Temple, and sealed behind closed doors. And he, Emmanuel, was going to be number eighteen. Still, perhaps without the very magical horn, as only the horn from an ancient dragon could be, the potion would be less dangerous. He could but hope, and pray.

"Do not sss, fear, our pet. Ssoon you will ssts, be able to look at ussss without fear. And no more nassty shape-changing for you, ss. Our potion will ssssee to that. You will drink, and be sssafe, drink and forget, drink deeply, and sink deeply down under our spell."

"Leavings of Gold Dragon fair,
Blood leaked from a Gorgon's tail.
A drop of poison from my hair,
All tossed by an Elemental from the air,
And congealed under a Gorgon's stare."

More hissing laughter followed the moderately terrible poem. For a moment, he was filled with fear. Was this his fate? To be like the other poor folks wandering around, mindless. Or perhaps like poor number seventeen, some bizarre twisted parody of normal human? He thought of his wife then, and of the family they hoped to have. And then he remember the poem, and couldn't help himself. That mighty gold Dragon, one of the most fearsome, proud and awesome beasts in all of the land, and they were keeping it only for its, ah, leavings??? He burst out laughing at the image of these proud snake women desperately gathering the dragon's leavings, treating each lump as a precious thing.

"It laughsss? Perhappsss it iss, sthsss, unsstable. Unsssuitable for the drink?"
"Iss it inssane, little one? Itsss the preciousss a lunatic?"
"Sshhheild your eyesss human, it isss not yet sss, ssafe for you to look, sss!"

For a few seconds, Emmaunel's life hung in the balance, as his eyes fluttered open and he held him stomach and wheezed with the remains of hysterical laughter. Luckily, at that moment, four certain people burst into the room, as the rest, as they say, is history.