"Da-Law-k?" Tempest called out, trying to imitate the way he spoke his name. She had been cued in by him gesturing his hand to his own chest.
With the confusion on her face, Dalock slumped and rubbed his forehead while muttering, "It always worked two ways back home... Why can't I get it to work like that here?"
He then looked up at me with a sneer like he had something putrid rubbed on his top lip. "As much as I don't like you, at least you can understand my words. Imp! Translate my words for the others so that they don't slow my discussion with my lesser half by asking him to do it instead."
With his momentum broken, I started to come back to my senses while the imp translated the last minute or so to them.
When Tempest heard the words "Champion of Bane," She grew wide eyed.
As Tempest looked more intently at the now more irritated Dalock, I started analyzing the situation. He knew English. He was from my world. That meant he was probably transformed like me to his character too, though with a clearly different build.
He had an imp familiar too. That probably meant he was a chain pact warlock. While Archimedes's owl form was a prime strategic choice for the base spell, a chain pact warlock had better options still, including an imp.
He also had just used diamond dust to cure a disease. That meant he had access to greater restoration, a level five spell. Given that I'd be able to do a level six spell if I were a single class at my total level, and I was without my wand, he was probably at least as powerful as I was, and was a competent healer. Celestial warlock patron maybe? With the rifts sealed, he definitely wasn't a cleric. Archimedes kept the technique that bound him and Discord to mortals a closely guarded secret, having ever only told Oghma when he needed to have himself be bound to me. So the only other alternate source of clerical power was an actual god, which had been sealed off from this world months back by my own hand.
"Well, I trust you can still hear me without needing to use that horse made toy of yours my familiar has told me so much about? As pretty as it was, I wasn't about to waste an attunement using it, much less valuable diamond dust trading for it."
I could feel the air around Tempest get colder while she held herself in check. Meanwhile the imp translated the word "horse," and started forcing herself to calmly address him with war formalities I didn't really understand.
"He's been studying me, but I've done the same just now." I messaged Archimedes. "At most, a high level warlock has four level five spell slots, and maybe four mystic arcanums at any given time. On top of that he's already spent one on the pup. Once those are gone all he has is cantrips. We just need to survive long enough to let him run out of ammo. Luckily that's something you and I can help the team with, partner."
With a slight irritation from the imp finishing his translation of Tempest's attempt to address him instead of me to English, Dalock looked back to me. "You don't even lead your party. You're even more pathetic an adventurer than I thought."
"I still don't know how he's alive, or why he wants to talk, but a fight is definitely happening. It's inevitable. Bane's claim to this world will remain until his champion dies."
Tempest intercepted us and gave the glare of irritation right back. With words on the slower side to make each one heard clear, including the defensive stance she made, she all but growled at him, "Don't look at him, look at me. I am the ranking officer here and the only one that can speak for the nation of Equestria and its allies."
With a twitch to his eye as he heard his familiar translate again, he put my wand away deep into his robes. Afterwords he started to look at Tempest with a glare. Judging by the snootiness he had, and Tempest's own temper, I could sense would break into a fight right then if left at this stalemate for too long.
I took a step forward to Tempest's side, took a knee and put a hand on the withers of her armor.
"Yes, she speaks for me and I can hear both of you. I promise I'll speak up if she says something I don't agree with. But talk to her, not me."
"I hope that buys us enough time to get a little more information out of him, at least."
Dalock still looked annoyed as before, but thankfully he gave a huff of defeat.
"I suppose it is inevitable that I speak with one of you eventually. I will have to do so to accept your nation's surrender."
Tempest's horn released a few sparks and her body tensed for just a moment. "Shouldn't you mean that the other way around?" She pointed to a single traveling pack in the corner that was so well hidden that I wouldn't have spotted it if she hadn't pointed it out. "As far as I can tell from your limited supplies, you're alone out here and barely getting by."
Once the message was translated, I half expected him to get irate like the madman he appeared to be, but he just grinned.
"Oh I know I'm alone, but that's OK. I have this."
He stepped aside and revealed the source of the purple light illuminating the cave. It was an crystal like orb a little larger than a head sitting in a crevice in the cave. Inside was a sickly swirling fog of the same purple.
"I command a plague artifact. The locals have been an excellent source of test subjects, but I am now ready to release an army you cannot defeat with blockades and bows." A visible shiver went down his spine after he spoke.
"It still surprises me to this day that those griffins didn't take the bribe I offered them. My familiar's intelligence gathering leaned so heavily on their loyalty being to their pocketbooks."
While he spoke under his breath the imp quietly translated with a smirk. Tempest gave Speaks with Talons a knowing look, which he promptly gave back. Scraps in the meantime simply looked disturbed at the idea of his home town being a testing ground for the madman and was letting the rest of the team carry the conversation.
"An army of diseases set loose upon your nation unless you surrender unconditionally. I suggest you hurry along and get your leaders' attention soon. I already have the power to wipe your nation out as I stand today, and my patience is wearing thin."
The entire team stared at him making his outlandish demand. It wasn't that we didn't believe him. Tempest's posture when she saw the plague artifact seemed to indicate she recognized high level magic when she saw it.
She shook her head and looked back at him. "You really don't sugarcoat your words, do you? You talk a good talk, but we can't let you use that artifact. Face it, you don't look that tough and we have you outnumbered. The only way you're getting out alive is in custody."
I started warning Tempest covertly "He is tougher than..." before going silent at the shifting patterns in Dalock's robes.
While his robes seemed to shift around magically, similar to how Luna's disguise as Moon Beam faded away, he leaned over a little and picked up an impressively well made and brutal looking magical staff.
Meanwhile a comparatively impressive shield appeared on his other arm, perfectly matching the likewise impressive armor that was showing clear as day underneath his now tattered robes. With his illusion broken, it was clear that he was a lot more ready for a fight than we anticipated.
The imp went and grappled Archimedes and pinned him down just as Tempest and Speaks with Talons charged Dalock.
He easily used his shield arm to block Tempest's volley of four strikes with her hardened horseshoes while taking Speaks with Talons namesake with a casting of a barrier, pushing his claws off target and only glancing his armor instead.
I readied my own shield and shifted into a bear, ready to up my defense should he knock me out of my form. But something felt off, like I was missing something as soon as I saw that barrier.
With a smirk as I charged closer to him, he struck both Tempest and Speaks with talons with his staff, a lot harder than what a spellcaster should normally be able to do with a stereotypically weak build like his.
As he did so, he called out, "turbo tonitruum!" and a glowing yellow energy enveloped both of them. Without so much as another word, he moved two of his fingers from his staff hand as if tipping a hat and teleported away from them, right next to Scraps as he did his best to hide in the otherwise obstacle free cave.
"Boo!" He called out, scaring Scraps away from him, and earning a solid bonk on his head from the same in the process of running, though no energy engulfed him.
After seeing this, Tempest and Speaks with Talons ran through the barrier made of energy, getting a solid glare of pain as they suffered the energy's damage from moving through it.
Upon recognizing the twinned spell effect on the booming blade spell, a spell meant only for one target, I just about shat myself when I realized what we were facing.
He wasn't just a Warlock, he was a sorcerer with spell slot making meta magic and a warlock with recharging pact magic. He was a sorcerer/warlock combo. A coffee-lock. That meant he didn't just have a handful of spell slots we could outlast anymore. Combined with greater restoration's exhaustion removing properties at his disposal, he didn't have to rest and reset his spell slots. It was a convoluted way to basically cheat the system without breaking the written rules. The short version: there was no way of telling just how many spell slots he'd managed to stockpile by now. Possibly even hundreds.
I couldn't help but curse to myself. "Oh fuck me sideways..."