Another FB with deadly dust arrived, stuck between the fungiwood with the others. Or so I thought, and continued the depot run. Quite a long time later, I found him standing out in the empty farms, destroying the grates I installed to keep the pond grabbers away. And just stood there, not going for the numerous access points, not destroying anything else for awhile. It's like he was challenging me, "You gotta come to me. Hey *wrecks another grate* do you hear me up there?"
There's a barracks right there, and the squad should be in training this month but no one's there except for the archer who went catatonic during last attack and a macelord. I deployed two units because I wasn't sure who was going to be dragass this time. But the archer and macelord got in there right away and into position.
The beast let out a massive blast, bigger than any dust attack I've seen. And he used it as a smokescreen, just where you think the edge of the cloud is, he's racing right out of it and grabbing the archer in several kind of holds that made her an instant elite wrestler. With her newly won title, she smacked him with futilely with her bow. Maybe I should give up on archers; I just insist on making use of an expert bowdwarf with an artifact bow.
Now the only surviving macedwarves I've got are tough enough to survive, so they can at least hold the line and soften up targets. In spite of the now rapid-fire blasts of two kinds of extract, making her noxious, oh and now blind, and her broken arm, she kept up the fight. A legendary spearlord came in and stabbed him in the brain in one shot, so quickly I was sure he got in between blasts. But no, he was covered in extract, and after walking 10 tiles, puking his boots and losing his vision, too.
I re-deployed them to the mistfall nearby, and between long periods of consciousness they tried to trudge there until they all decided what they needed was Rest. And the new hospital 60 tiles away wasn't good enough, they needed to crowd into the upper ward more than twice as far. And no-one came to collect their unconscious asses. Yeah, a list of nurses with No Job one second, and suddenly all On Break simultaneously. They really put the 'care' in 'healthcare'.
Fortunately it was a contact poison, and after the archer and spear stopped the vomit flow, they decided blindness wasn't that good a reason for a hospital visit (and given the staff, who could blame them?) The macedwarf took a lot longer to pass through the mistfall with her broken arm, eventually made it to the hospital.
But before a doctor finally diagnosed her, everyone's blindness also faded. Good luck -- if there's a resurgent outbreak I know I won't have a terminally blinded population.