Dungeon Entrance
A sign is conveniently labelled IMPERIAL PUMPS 243A RESTRICTED REPAIR ZONE. The gate is barred and guarded. Restricted access only, obviously.
Access can normally be acquired either through a large bribe to someone in the upper levels of the engineering corps, or presenting them with an exceptionally good reason plus a small bribe. However, until the situation on the first two levels is resolved, the Engineering Corps will not allow anyone in aside from groups they trust to be able to solve problems violently and discreetly, such as adventuring parties that have worked for them before. (The current strategy of the Corps is to starve those in there of food and oxygen, but in fact they have means around that.) If a party is let in through the Corps, they are equipped with gas masks (each with 4/6 chance of actually being effective) and instructed to kill everyone indiscriminately on the upper levels; the entrance is sealed.
This floor has served for the last few centuries as the offices of the Restricted Repair Zone Internal Research Unit. Currently, however, the head of the IRU, Tlaesgu Xnol, is a stalactomancer working to fulfill the desires of ancient bacteria which have taken up residence as her gut flora. She is fully aware of having her internal values changed and happy with it, but is also aware that her social tics make her not especially amenable to convincing the outside to let her out - in fact, her initial attempts led to a much more secure quarantining than existed before. Her subordinates are in a partial state of being infected: some have their visual systems under the control of the colony, others their hearing, still others their limbic systems.
The bacteria controlling Xnol wants to infect the rest of Mlejnas. Because the RRZ is not connected to the operating parts of the pump zone except through areas that are very difficult to get through, and because her initial attempts to infect the Corps resulted in their quarantine. Though use of Metabolize and Transmute Carbon to Oxygen, Xnol and her minions can live here almost indefinitely.
Xnol and the rest of the compromised IRU will defend themselves with improvised alchemical explosives, Transmute Carbon to Oxygen-enabled firebreathing, and pickaxe if necessary, but their default approach is diplomacy, including even after the party has turned to violence. While they are not very charismatic by human standards, they are quite reasonable - Xnol will point out that the Corps will keep the boundary sealed even after the party is done (this is probably true), that their only means of survival is cooperation with the colony (this depends on how creative the PCs are), and that they have no desire to infect the surface (totally false.) If they subdue the party, they will inject them with compromised water, Charm them and releasing them as full members of the new community once/if they seem willing to cooperate with colony goals. (N.B. what this version of Charm does in the Stalactomancer spell list; Charmed PCs can still very much work against the colony, but they will want to get water from them and not be physically violent towards them.)
For all their infections, the IRU staff, including Xnol herself, are still scientists at heart, and find their condition fascinating (both those who are horrified by it as well as those who have made their peace with it.) When danger is not present, they will be most curious to engage in speculation about the infection.
The rooms on this level include a library, chemical lab, administrative offices, and mess room. Means of disinfecting an individual could be secured through the materials in the chemical lab and cooperation of one of the staff. There is a stairs to level 2 of the dungeon, and a sealed chute to level 3 (although it's a long chute full of noxious, inflammable vapors, and the staff is reluctant to open it - they have the means to metabolize the stuff if necessary, but they're also concerned about it ruining their books!)
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