I pause. a black distortion appears in front of me, and out drop two weapons. the first, a staff made of gnarled iron,swirling blue filaments of energy around it and bits of spun gold embedded within, and the other, a partially crystallized treebranch with an orb of moon-colored material floating between its branches.
then, a red chestplate and purple metallic leggings drop out, as does a set of armor that sparkles like the night sky, and 2 other nondescript pieces of armor. the red chestplate, metalic leggings, and Lunar stave go to my clone, and the other stuff, to me. these are some rather high-tier pieces of armor and weaponry. my set is all-around good, and accelerates growth somewhat, while my clones normally deals damage to the user every time they attack, but the red chestplate and purple leggings neutralize this damage with life steal and medium regeneration.

Then, we begin our advance, repeatedly casting [Teleport] so we can bypass detection webs and pressure sensors as well as pitfalls and delayed attacks. let's see what you've got, Slykar

What the heck, I'll teleport to smort while pulling a staff off of my back. I grab both ends and pull, and the stick separates into two. The sticks glow reddish-black for a moment, then blades extend from the end of each of them, and the wood shortens. The end result is two katanas with gnarled wooden handles, the blades glowing with reddish-black energy. My armor, previously only thin black plate with red decoration, changes drastically. The black chestplate, leggings, vambraces, and paldrons bulk up considerably, becoming less thin and flimsy and more sturdy and hard, though not bulky or thick. The red decorations snake up around the armor, supporting it. Red spikes grow from the armor as a black helmet slides up over my head iron man style. Red and black energy crackles between the spikes on my armor. I proceed to blink repeatedly after JOE.

I see Wooby arriving, and toss them a couple of potions to empower their spells, and offer them a staff to empower their magic, should they find they need it despite their blades. the staff has a thin, black handle, with weights on the bottom of the rod to balance the white cluster at the top, which holds a variety of runes and pieces, most noticeably an otherworldly gem with its own gravitational pull. like how my staff of twisted iron surrounds itself with fillaments of blue, so too does this staff have its own, except its are in a variety of colors, specifically five: Blue, Green, Red, Yellow, and a light gray. aren't I helpful?

I throw a couple of protective abjurations on me and JOE, such as mind blank, primordial ward, stoneskin, freedom of movement, and death ward. 

Well, I was hoping he could use his expertise in creating slime-homunculi* (and on rare occasions, humanoids) from admittedly large amounts of  life essence to give my friendly homunculi better bodies and maybe even improve their intelligence again. where would he get this life essence from in an ethical manner?  cloning people with healthy bodies, but without giving their brains enough time to develop into distinct individuals. i mean i don't get it how did he not realize that was an option.

Of course, if he does not want to help me, he can always fight against me, myself, and this beer addict. he'll probably die if he does that though.

*That is actually a thing he did in the thing i was taking insperation from. in fact, his entire dungeon consists of making slimes from the life essense of failed challengers... though given how rare it is for people to fail a dungeon, this must be a very, very efficient way of producing minions.

I ask him what aid he needs. as for the 'as for the question', the only thing I used a question mark was supposed to be a sort-of-rhetorical question, which i immediately offered an answer to (cloning).
Now, if the aid he needs is too demanding, I point out that me and probably the beer addict do still have our ethics, and we could just kill him now, offering the choice of helping or death,or something.

I look as if I was about to take offense from JOE's comment, then realized he was telling the truth. I take a swig from a flask at my hip.

(Also what thing are you taking inspiration from?)

I point out that given wooby's job directly involves bear, bear addict could even be a compliment.

(not telling, m8. its spoipers. really, i shouldn't even be taking inspiration from it here.)

"Sure! Yay sidequests!"

"Wait but where do we go?"

"TEEEELLLL MEEEEEEE!!!"

I look ever so slightly very extremely super drunk.

may I make a suggestion?
harvest small amounts of life force, amounts they can regenerate within a day, every other day. this way, they won't notice too much, they won't die out, and you'll have more life force over time. Also, don't tell them you're going it, and use some fraction (a small one, naturally) of the life force to improve living conditions. this way, they will be thankful to your grand magic. also also, when a foreigner comes to the city, do not drain their life force for the first week or two. then, gradually increase life force drain until it reaches the standard.
If Slykar does gives some reason my plan would not work or still wants the revolutionaries dealt with, I and my clone walk through the door. I  open with a limbless dragon of chilled mist, fragments of ice leaping forwards from the glowing distortion, and charging through the room. this Ice Snake spell is very special:  it deals very little direct damage, but slows people immensely for about half a minute. my clone attacks any non-sentient bodyguards they have. then, wand held menacingly in my hand with a swirling cloud of stone near its tip, I ask them to surrender now to avoid unnecessary loss of life.

I kick down the door even though JOE has already opened it(I close it and then kick it down) a become a whirlwind of spinning death. My blades cut through flesh and rend armor and shields in twain. Red and black energy arcs from my blades, chaining through groups of revolutionaries and striking them dead on the spot. Whenever on of them attempts to strike me, red and black lightning from my armor leaps up their blade, frying them.

I walk back to Slykar and tell him the thing's done, now could he help me out? great. also, given how injured the adventurers apparently where, slykar could probably have killed them anyway.

(I wasn't intending to say it to Slykar, I intended to just note it OOC. i probably should have clarified. saying it to him would be tactless.)
I needed his help in bypassing the inteligence limit on a homunculus, or, failing that, making the homunculus more versatile and powerful in general. also, as an aside, I ask him whether non-sentient clones who have lived scant minutes would be able to provide the life force he needs, because if so, perhaps a long-term partnership will be advantageous- i suspect my growing army of homunculientists will figure it out soon enough.