ray245 wrote:So there is no super-mega-uber weapon from hell right?
No. This is one of the many times the story disregards dramatic conventions in order to make a point. It would certainly have been more dramatic (if horribly cliched) for Belial to have made an amazing superweapon that is a deadly threat to the humans. Instead it's made clear that even under the best possible circumstances and the most generous plausible assumptions, a bronze age civilisation can't reverse engineer (or invent) anything in time to do any good against an invasion.
P.S. Here's the original draft version of the lighting canon scene, written back in early spring;
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The Van de Graaff generator was crude, but what it lacked in finesse it made up for in size and the enthusiasm of the duergar cranking it. "More power" shouted Obersturmbannfuhrer Herwijer "I must have more power!" The prototype Great Trident occupied a commanding position in the centre of one of a former storage area, deep in the tunnels of Palelabor. It was a humming, sparking mass of hand-wound copper coils and close-packed Leyden jars wrapped around a central iron shaft. Fifteen feet in length and two feet in diameter at its widest point, the weapon was Herwijer's first attempt to make an artillery piece using the demon's unspeakably primitive technology base.
The weapon was sighted down a long tunnel, at the end of which was chained a very unfortunate duergar. Herwijer got the impression that had been sentenced to death for incompetence, something do do with losing a whole shipment of 'mushroom ale' to the 'ratlings', he wasn't clear on the details. The humming quickly built to a climax and the weapon finally discharged, a great glowing bolt leaping from the trifold prongs and hurtling off down the tunnel. Lightning crackled between the glowing bolt and the tunnel walls as it sped towards the target, who had a fraction of a second to scream in terror before being blown into tiny scorched chunks.
"Endlich, es funktioniert! Ausgezeichnete." Herwijer crowed.
Yulupki took a different view on the proceedings. The naga had been watching the human mage work from the gallery. She still thought it unlikely that the human notions of how to fight a war could be of any use to superior beings, coloured as they were by the human's own pathetic weakness. However Count Belial had ordered her to evaluate their efforts and she had no real choice but to obey. "So you have taken twenty days and a pile of metal to do what any naga could do with a mere thought. You expect this to impress?"
"Ah no, meine lady, you see, the device does not generate power, it merely focuses and compresses the power supplied to it much more efficiently than your current equipment."
Yulupki wasn't precisely sure what that meant but it sounded like a slight. "You DARE belittle the great forces of Hell?" She had her tentacles raised and their emitter tips crackled with her eagerness to erase this annoying human from existence.
"Oh nein, meine lady, my weapon can only work in combination with your great powers. Of course you could have learned made such weapons yourselves, doubtless much better than a human could. It is just that you have never had the need, and there is such urgency..." Herwijer had been a high flyer in the National Socialist regieme and he hadn't managed that without licking his fair share of boots.
Yulupki waved dismissively. "Enough. Show me what this weapon of yours can do for me."
"Of course, meine lady." He smiled and spread his hands. "But I believe we will need a larger area to test it in..."
The naga barked orders to the lesser demons, who swarmed over the weapon, unbolting it and hoisting it onto their backs. She turned and slithered down through the tunnels to the great gates, the team of duergar following behind with the weapon and Herwijer trailing at the rear. There she mounted one of the wheeled platforms and ordered the gates opened. "I think a ratling hunt will do nicely. We shall see if your overgrown trident can increase my tally."
"Inspired! Now if you could set the barrel down here, on the railing..." The duergar heaved the great trident onto the forward railing of the platform, which promtly sagged under the weight. "...and you grip this part here, then insert your... ah... appendages into these flanges here..." Yulupki's face betrayed a great distaste for the entire process but she tolerated it for now, she could always repay the insolence with some creative torture once the human mage had been proven useless.
"Forward." Four of the servitors set to pumping the crank at the rear of the platform, which slowly rolled out through the bronze gates and into the vast cavern beyond, steadily picking up speed until the slight gradient defeated further acceleration. Beyond the pool of light cast by the torches around the entrance the cave was pitch black and Herwijer wondered how the snake demon expected to find any targets. In fact she had closed her eyes, relying entirely on her electical field sense to pinpoint the vermin. Their thoughts were weak and animalistic, but the bioelectricity of their bodies alone was enough for her to home in on. Closer, closer... she could sense a whole group of them crouching motionless off to the left of the track ahead. Probably waiting to see if the demon party was weak enough to attempt an ambush. Her skin began to tingle as her body built up to its maximum capacity of psychic force.
Now! Yulupki loosed an earsplitting shriek and discharged all her energy at the vermin. The human device caught her lightning before it could even form into bolts, held it for a split second, then spat an impossibly bright discharge from its maw. As the lightning flashed it illuminated the whole cavern; twenty nine ratlings were caught in the act of fleeing from the demon's approach. The great trident's bolt moved so fast it looked like a great spear of light transfixing a huge rat-creature at the centre of the group. The creature was instantly blown apart, replaced by a ball of plasma from which secondary bolts lashed out in all directions. Eight more ratlings were killed instantly, their nervous systems completely fried, while another thirteen were merely paralysed or knocked unconscious. The last seven were merely blinded, mewling and stumbling around helplessly.
Herwijer had dropped to the ground, hands over his ears and stars dancing in his eyes. He wasn't left to cower for long. Coarse hands hauled him to his feet. The demons had lit a pair of torches and his vision was fast returning. What he saw was not encouraging. His device was a write off, fully half the Leyden jars had blown out and runaway arcing had transformed much of the wiring into a twisted molten mass. Clearly the test had been a disaster and he trembled to think of what would befall him next. Then his gaze wandered to the left and he saw the snake demon, slithering around inspecting the char-grilled furry bodies.
"Why this is glorious! One spell did all this! Human, how quickly can more of these great weapons be made?"
"Well, mein Lady, it needs just a few little adjustments, I fear I underestimated your power..." A look of annoyance was returning to the snake demon's face, probably best she didn't know "...but if you would permitt me to optimise the duergar's working methods a little, within two weeks I will have Palelabor turning out fifty great tridents a day."
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My original version of Palelabor was a little grander, though not radically different. The one major piece of artistic license is that electricity seems to behave more like the way it does in B movies than the way it does in real life - that's a theme Stuart started with the normal tridents, I just picked it up and ran with it.
(I almost put the damn magazine down at that point.)