Tower of Distillations
The entire ground floor (area 13a) is a workshop for the Savant Aboleth. It has an intelligent dominated slave worker assisting it in the making of potions, a human wizard who was one of the Aboleth's kidnappers until the savant deemed him more useful within Shaboath on account of his familiarity with potion making. This pair are a dangerous spellcasting duo. There is a 50% chance at any given time that an additional ordinary Aboleth will be here, providing slime for the potion manufacture. The usual litter of alchemical work can be found here - glass vessels, work tables, retorts, and the like, even oil burners for slow distillations. General equipment to the value of 3,000 gp can be taken from here (weight 100 lbs), and four Potions of Water Breathing and eight Potions of Domination can likewise be garnered. Exits lead from this floor downwards in the form of a water chute, and upwards in the form of a stone ramp built flush with the circular tower wall.
The Savant Aboleth is an 8th-level priest/11th level wizard; it knows the following spells: Bless, Darkness, Protection from Good), Barkskin, Hold Person (x2 Continual Darkness, Dispel Magic, Feign Death, Divination, Spell Immunity, Magic Missile (x3), Shield, Blur, Detect Invisibility, Mirror Image, Ray of Enfeeblement, Haste, Slow, Suggestion, Water Breathing Confusion, Fear, Minor Globe of Invulnerability, Airy Water, Cone of Cold, Feeblemind.
The wizard, Shalzerith, is short and thin, a middle-aged man with black hair, brown eyes, and a droopy moustache. If the PCs free him from his domination he will pretend to have been an abductee, forced to assist the Aboleth with their work. He will try to get his spellbooks from area 13b, of course, and then uses his Teleport spell to escape at the first opportunity. Other rescued slaves may recognize Shalzerith as a member of a gang which kidnapped them and inform the PCs accordingly; this depends on circumstances, obviously.
Note that both the savant and the wizard have precast Stoneskin spells operative.
If there is trouble outside these two will come to investigate, of course. Working as a pair, the savant opts for defensive spells first (Mirror Image, Spell Immunity) as Shalzerith tries to cast Blur and Shield as initial protections; if there is no time for this he tries to Hold spellcasters and polymorph a tough fighter into a tiny (inch-high) squid. If the life of the Savant Aboleth is in danger, the creature will flee for the water chute while Shalzerith casts a Wall of Force to cover its escape.
The upper story of the tower (area 13b) is Shalzerith's quarters; his bedroom and living chamber. These rooms are comfortable and well furnished (trappings worth 3,000 gp; weight 50 Ibs total), and a wooden coffer stands on the floor beneath a small wooden table. This is Wizard Locked and has Explosive Runes inscribed inside the lid. This coffer contains Shalzerith's spellbooks (with his listed spells, plus Wizard Lock, Explosive Runes, and d3 additional spells of 1st through 5th levels of the DM's choice). It also contains a hefty tome entitled A Treatise on Alchymical Operations, which can be read with gain by any wizard of 9th or higher level. A week's perusal of the book earns the wizard 10,000 XP and grants him or her a 10% bonus chance of success whenever brewing potions; the pages of the book become blank after such a close reading. Finally, Shalzerith has a small cache of gems in a pigskin pouch: six yellow topaz (value 500 gp each) and four deep purple oriental amethysts (value 1,000 gp each).
The water chute leads down 40 feet to an excavated chamber (area 13c) where two Giant Moray Eels (5+8 HD) lair in a clutter of overgrown kelp that provides them with excellent camouflage. They know better than to attack an Aboleth and are placed here to protect the savant if it needs to flee from above (and also to prevent unwanted intrusion from the Sunless Sea). From this chamber, the chute turns south as it carries on downwards for a further 200 feet and emerges out into the deep waters of the Sunless Sea itself. A Continual Light spell has been placed at the exit point, and two master glyphs have been crafted here by the savant. One is a Glyph of Enfeeblement, and the other a Glyph of Negation which, if triggered, cancels any water-breathing spell-effects the PCs currently have in operation and deactivates devices with this power for 2d6 turns. Since the PCs are currently some 250 feet below the surface of the Sunless Sea, this could seriously inconvenience them. Nevertheless, this portal offers the PCs an alternative entrance into the city other than entering by the Sluice.
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