Things in the Temple of the Snake were quiet, too quiet for Medusa's liking. She had amassed a small army of snake-haired women towards her goal of reclaiming the land for all things serpentine, scouring the land for suitable recruits, but they were not enough. Being rather long-lived (an unexpected benefit of the curse Athena placed on her), she could afford to be patient, but this was ridiculous. They were at no more than half-strength and time was growing short.

To make matters worse, her cloning experiments were going very poorly. If they managed it all, the poor, warped creature that resulted had garter snakes for hair and turned men into Jello, lime Jello at that. The temple reeked and the floors were sticky. She had sent a messenger to Agar, pleading for assistance, but weeks had gone by with no response.

Stamping her foot angrily, she thought, "There MUST be another way! How did those nasty druids in Silver Cove manage to build up their numbers so fast?" Puzzled, she stopped her pacing and rubbed her chin thoughtfully. She hated druids, with their perky figures and their sweet voices. Nasty, whiney little things. But you had to admit, they bred like rabbits.

"That's it!" she exclaimed, startling the gold dragon that guarded the entrance. "They BREED. All we have to do is find some dates and let nature take its course."

"But how to get them here," she mused. The legends that served so well to protect them, that simply looking on their faces would turn a man to stone, might be a bit of a barrier to getting close enough to one to, er, well, YOU KNOW. But they were just legends. Sure, if a gorgon really put her mind to it, she could convince a man to THINK he was stoned, but it took some doing. Once he thought he was rock, it was only a matter of time before his flesh followed his brain. Men were pretty silly creatures. However, this train of thought was not solving her problem; she needed a hook, something to lure the men they needed.

"Well," she thought. "What do men like? They like treasure. We've got that. They like food. We've got lots of Jello. They like women. And we certainly have those." She thought some more. "I know! We'll have a party and invite them all."

The next morning, engraved invitations were sent to every man in Enroth. Of course, only the very brave and the very foolhardy accepted. But when they arrived at the temple, after sneaking out past wives and werewolves, they found that the gorgons really knew how to throw a party. There were kegs of Goblinwatch cider, cases of White Cap ice wine, and all manner of liquors from the distilleries of Dragon Sands. The temple was festooned with streamers, paper lanterns, and balloons, and the walls throbbed to the pounding heavy metal beat of an all-Titan band from Hermit's Isle.

By ten o'clock, the party was going strong and by midnight the Royal Guards had been called twice for violations of the noise ordinance. At 2:30, they ran out of drinks and began mixing potions of gorgon's blood and dragon drool. (The poor dragon had no head for alcohol and passed out early.) The resulting explosions destroyed most of the decorations and as for the potions themselves, well their effects were not pretty. Many of the men were instantly blinded, others suffered permanent brain damage, while still others became enraged and began tormenting the dragon (awake again, and with a splitting headache), trying to get it to fight. Since they were unarmed and the dragon was large, it wasn't much of a battle. Of course, it wasn't much of a meal for the dragon either, who really wanted everyone to just go away and leave it to suffer in peace.

At some point, a group of stonecutters who had come all the way from Free Haven for the free drinks and the women decided it would be hysterically funny to make poor Emanuel Cravitz dance in a cage suspended above the dance floor. Unfortunately for Manny, the stonecutters soon became embroiled in the dragon episode and no one was left alive to remember he was up there.

The next morning, the Temple was in shambles. All the decorations and balloons were gone, either blown up by faulty potion-mixing or burned away by the cranky, hung-over dragon. Those few men who survived the festivities were wandering the halls forlornly, their brain cells fried and their minds wiped clean.