That was Fun!
I'm down to 42 dwarves. That's about 70 deaths in less than 2 months, just because I thought, some "deadly dust" would be no match for my military. The beast took over 30 and the rest tantrumed or went mad afterwards. Now, the situation is stable again. I've lost many important dwarves (1 legendary farmer, the manager/butcher and the whole metalworking industry), but life goes on in "Helpmerchants". Ironically, I won't be helping any merchants this year. The whole fort is closed up from the outside world until everything is 100% back to normal. There are about 50 goblins (and probably 50 more sneaky elves) outside the gate... good luck to any merchants or migrants, but this gate doesn't open until next winter. The imaginary king ordered 1 year of total quarantine until anybody can enter the fort. To be honest, I really don't want to let those invaders in, as the military currently consists of 6 recruits, 2 cripples, eh, I mean veterans and 2 marksdwarves who won't fire at anything but love beating stuff with their wooden crossbows.
On the positive side: Nobody cares about anything anymore. Dwarves who survive this kind of horror, will survive anything. The whole sky could come down and these guys would just shrug and say "we've seen worse..."