This encounter had an... interesting resolution when I tried to run it, but I had fun coming up with it so I'm going to write up the original version and how I envisioned it going.
The Setup
Belfor the Wizard has left some sort of flyer in a place the party can find it that invites adventurers and skilled people. Belfor lives a few days' walk away from where the flyers are posted, in an ancient temple complex. The temple has been abandoned for some time, so Belfor has had to make some repairs to be able to use the space. There are three rooms that he has converted for his use, the machine room, the lab, and the storage room.
The Rooms
The machine room is the largest of the three and contains what appears to be a massive brass cylinder covered in LED lights. The lights blink randomly in many colors, and the cylinder itself is hollow. There are several large red arrows on the floor that appear to guide people into one end of the cylinder. There are also several tables and a chair in the room covered in books and notes. If the party arrives during the day, this is where Belfor will receive them. Belfor also keeps several oozes under his command hidden behind the cylinder in case he needs them.
The lab is full of shelves, a desk, notebooks, writing materials, magical ingredients, and Belfor's bed. This is where Belfor sleeps, and he keeps the door to the lab locked at all times with a key that he keeps on his person at all times. This lab is very well-stocked and players have 50/50 odds of finding pretty much any magical ingredient or spell component. This lab also has notes which explain what the machine does and what Belfor's plan is.
The storage room is full of sealed jars, each of which contains a single green ooze monster. In total, there are 60 of these jars with room for 40 more. The door to this room, like the lab, is always locked and can be opened by a key that Belfor keeps on his person at all times.
Belfor's Request
Belfor, who is surprisingly kind and charming for a hermit living in an ancient temple, asks the party to go out to find and capture any living animals they can find, bring the animals back to Belfor, and then help him force the animals through the brass cylinder. Belfor explains that this will turn the animals into green ooze monsters, which he can then control. Belfor will be vague about how he controls the oozes, but if pushed he will admit that he found a magic wand that allows him to command the green ooze monsters at the same time that he found the cylinder. Belfor also mentions that he will pay the party a moderate sum of money for each animal successfully converted to an ooze, with a goal of converting 40 animals.
How the party goes about getting these animals is up to the game master and what makes the most sense to them, as well as what ideas the party comes up with on their own. Of note is that other people count as living animals, so there is certainly a much darker route people can take with finding victims. Initially I thought it would be fun to have Belfor request other people specifically, but I think he has a bit more guile than to ask random adventurers to kidnap people to be turned into ooze monster slaves.
If the party does collect 40 animals for Belfor, he will congratulate them and then reveal his true plans with his new army of oozes. Belfor is going to invade and take over the nearest town, and then convert the population into oozes, growing his army even more so that he can eventually establish an entire kingdom of oozes with him as the leader. Animals keep their minds through the process of ooze conversion, horrifyingly enough, so Belfor believes that once he has taken control of enough places, he will only need to directly control a small cadre of elites and all the new ooze people will have no choice but to serve his kingdom and go on with their regular lives, just as oozes. Whether or not this plan could succeed is questionable, but Belfor is clearly much less stable than he initially appeared. He offers to let the party become his generals, not needing to become oozes until the final stages of creating Belfor's ooze kingdom when they will take their places as the aristocracy of Belfor's new ooze kingdom.
If the party is into Belfor's plan, well then they have just created an epic campaign for themselves, even if it is a bit evil. If the party is not into Belfor's plan, he will have his bodyguard oozes reveal themselves and attack the party. Belfor himself will try to stay out of the way of the combat until he gets hit, at which moment one of his defensive spells will activate and he will immediately teleport away to plot his revenge, leaving the now feral oozes behind for the party to deal with.
Notes
When I ran this encounter, one of the characters immediately tried to stab Belfor, skipping ahead to the part of the encounter where they fight Belfor's bodyguard oozes and he teleports away. The way things worked out, one of the other characters was able to grab Belfor's wand before he teleported away, allowing that character to stop the combat by controlling the oozes Belfor had tried to attack the party with. After this combat, the character who attacked Belfor began investigating the brass cylinder, but without finding any of the information that explained what it was, he followed the arrows into the ooze converter and became an ooze, after which he was immediately enthralled by the character with the ooze control wand. Obviously, the player of the ooze character needed to make a new character.
If I'm being real, I think I want to try to run this encounter again sometime with a different group, because I think there are a few interesting ways it could play out. At the very least, I want to hear the conversations that arise about the ethics around the whole situation, and the looks of horror and disgust upon realizing what exactly is going on.
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