Had my first major uncontrolled infection. Hind portion of a caravan got hot by a cloud, and I sent some marksdwarved to handle the unquestionably slower ash zombies. Unlike murdered reanimations, which are fast and aggressive, and spawned undead, which are slower than a dwarf, the ash zombies are so slow they are almost benign. Except the civies still.run, and and punctures of the skin lead to infection.
Anywho a few marksmen forgot bolts and one still had his obsidian short sword for some reason. The fresh dead got up and turned the fight. I disbanded the routed squad for one survivor.
This aside and being rather new to evil weather I wonder if my experience is normal? slow cloud zombies and mostly free reign above ground so long as caution is used?
Well, I had huge swathes of my embark rendered deadly to anything that had blood. A single brush with a cloud was instant death; the hardier of foes would die a few seconds after the cloud passed.
A dwarf who had walked through the ash decided that he should take his shoes off in the MAIN STAIRWAY, so after 48 dwarves came down with full body blistering leading to death after a season, where the hardiest dwarves still died eventually, I had to seal off the stairway, produce a shit tonne more boots/socks and build a new stairway. Of course, it meant that I had no opposition; sieges would appear and disappear as a cloud passed over them rendering them unidentifiable blobs of once-were-goblin.
That was a SINGLE UNIT OF ASH. It was probably a grain sized thing, but it infected 48 and killed 46 in a season. Somehow, I survived without a tantrum spiral, though one dying dwarf berserked, cut a butcher's arm off and threw it on top of his workshop before expiring in a puddle of blood and burst blisters. Quarantining that shit was nasty.
In other news, my current fort is running perilously close to running out of food, despite the farms operating at 100% usage and two fisheries processing mussels and other fish/shellfish as quick as they come in. We've had five deep drow assassins attack, but they were all captured.
Shook awoke from his/her coma and promptly donned the new scaleplate armor I sent to the barracks for him and BrokenUWrist. Seconds later, a dwarf went berserk and killed two kittens. Shook and UWrist took him down in a matter of seconds.
Miauw is studying to become a Life Mage down in the deeps of the fort.