A forgotten beast, a blob composed of vomit with deadly dust, assaulted the fortress. It was put down quickly, with no direct injuries, but several dwarves have already been hospitalized after exposure to the dust. So far, the only symptom I can actually see is bleeding. Here's to hoping it isn't fatal...
[quick edit]
The hospitalized dwarves are released immediately with no actual treatment. Bleeding continues after release, however. It may be coughing blood, rather than bleeding from the skin, which may make it comparatively less fatal. Already, though, I'm seeing spatterings of dog blood. No dogs were involved in the fighting of the FB, as far as I know, so I reason that the dog picked it up from contact with the only obvious source remaining (the dust itself didn't appear to leave behind any sort of residue): the spatterings of blood left by infected dwarves.
That means it's contagious through skin contact, and enters the blood of the infected, which is thus spread all over the damn place. If this thing is fatal, it's probably already too late to stop it; the only dwarf I have safely quarantined and guaranteed clean at the moment is the vampire I caught earlier. She's stable, at least.
[edit]
It has been 14 days since initial exposure, and the first fatality has occured: a turkey gobbler. This shows, at least, that the bleeding can be fatal for smaller animals, but even the two rangers who were directly exposed, Endok and Kivish, show no signs of faintness, and are no longer bleeding.
Turkeys and cavies don't have a whole lot of blood in them to start with, I know, so perhaps it will only wipe out my smaller livestock populations. Then again, FB syndromes have an average of 3-4 symptoms, from older data extracts, and often these syndromes can be delayed by many years, as shown in the fortresses in the Battlefailed series. Huffin' too much of that white powder doesn't just result in hallucinations and an excuse not to go to work today; it ends in necrosis and the death of 90% of the population.
Oh well!
[Edit the third]
Another FB showed up: a hairy, bloated maggot with a square shell, who spun webs. I would have loved to have my own ginormous silk worm, but there was no way to capture it at the time. It entered the fortress after the vastest majority of civilians had made it to the panic bunker, and engaged the dogs in their kennels first. The militia stepped in and put it down without trouble. All in all, it managed to kill two dogs and fatally wound another, who suffocated soon after. What a waste of a perfectly good silk factory!
[oops]
My commander somehow ended up in a cage trap. He was released without further consequence.
[The horror!]
Apparently enough children have died in the danger room that my child to adult ratio was within the proper range to permit new pregnancies. Population explosion incoming... And just as I had nearly enough rooms for everyone!
I'm also beginning to process some candy I'd extracted into strands, which will eventually go on to make wafers. This is good, as far as I'm concerned.
I have been capturing and training crundles as of late, and have attained "general familiarity" with crundle training methods. I will add the meat of these beasts to my stockpiles as I see fit, but first I must guarantee that I can safely breed and keep them, preferably without cages involved. I have also captured many elk birds and am designing a special enclosure just for them. The extra eggs and meat will come in handy, methinks, but breeding them is a gigantic pain in the ass, and may not be feasible without disabling their grazer tag. I'll have to ask permission for that, given this is a succession game save and I don't want to be disqualified just so I can have many, many elk birds.
[edit of eternal irritation]
Yet another forgotten beast has come to pester my wee fortress today; a humanoid composed of ash, with two tails. And a poisonous sting, injected from a single stinger. So, which tail has the stinger?
I'll let the militia at 'im, sure enough.
Probably won't succeed in stinging anyone, given they've all nabbed shields by this point and spar enough to be decent with them.Nope. A damn ranger got stabbed in the arm. I'm gonna have to quarantine her fast.
[to infinity and edit!]
The ranger has been unconscious for months, due to the beast's venom. It's been causing her extreme pain, and she has repeatedly attempted to get out of bed to no avail. Her broken arm has healed completely, but she is still unable to eat and drink for herself, because she receives only fleeting moments of consciousness, and I'd imagine she's screaming the entire time she's awake. She has a low endurance and willpower, so that could be all that's necessary to keep her down for the count even if the symptom's severity were anything less than 100, but she also has a high resistance to disease, so hopefully any resistible symptoms won't appear for her.
I feel bad for her. It's got to be hell on earth. At the same time, I'd rather keep her alive to see what other symptoms pop up later on, or if she ever manages to crawl to her room or something. So I will.
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Topic: What's going on in your fort? (Read 6195416 times)