At least it was painful for me. Not so much for my dwarves, as you'll see...
So I got my first
. Turns out he was made of coke. Beware his deadly dust? Hummmm.... wasn't sure what that meant, but I was somewhat alarmed as I had only just figured out my military controls in any real way. My dwarves hadn't even dealt with a goblin siege yet, just some random stuff in the cavern I cracked recently, like olmmen and elk birds.
I sent all three of my squads down to the cavern post-haste, but they didn't get there in time, so I said "screw it" and sent in who I had. Glad it turned out that way in hindsight, for reasons you'll soon see. A couple of wardogs joined in.
After a brief battle, one of my adequate axedwarves lopped off the head of the mighty beast. Only one dwarf was killed. I felt fortunate for a brief moment...
...until I checked out the wounds from every one of the eight or so soldiers who made it into the cavern.
In addition to all having been blinded, every bit of skin, muscle and fat on their eyelids, lips, arms, legs, and every finger and toe was now suffering from advanced rot. Instantly. For every. Single. One. Including my militia commander.
Thank Armok that their crippling and disfiguring injuries inflicted also made them completely numb. Destroyed their nerve endings, I suppose? At least they didn't feel it, and most of them were still quite content despite their massive injuries.
Fortunately, my recent migrant waves had included many individuals with health care skills who I had been using for hauling. I freed them up, cranked out some soap, and got cracking. Well, after my chief medical dwarf had a good long drink and a nap. Of course. Fortunately, the victims walked upstairs and put themselves in the hospital and were resting comfortably in short order, though there weren't nearly enough beds to go around.
I hadn't messed with health care much -- just a bit of dabbling when one of my idiot farmers got hit by my idiot practicing siege operators with a ballista bolt -- so I thought I'd diagnose and see what happens. The damage was, fairly obviously, beyond repair but I hoped to keep them going long enough to stretch out the deaths and avoid a tantrum spiral (I haven't yet experienced one but hear they're not much fun!) After being cleaned, the victims would have needed several dozen surgeries each.
What's worse... the miasma. The constant traffic in and out of my hospital made the cloud disperse to the closely located central stair, so every level of my fortress was infected with it. The huge cloud of miasma made it difficult for me to see what was happening. I quickly forbade the main hospital entrance after mining another, which didn't seem to help much. The clouds seemed to be moving away, all over the fort... how? I realized that the wardogs were running around the fortress, with rotten skin, muscle, and fat on their paws (but not the rest -- oddly). How the dogs were running everywhere with a rotten knot of flesh at the end of each foot baffles me, but okay.
Before I could start tracking all of the wardogs down, I got a surgery cancellation. Turns out the victims, despite being fed and watered, were tired of resting and went back to their barracks, leaving a huge stinky cloud behind them as they went. The military, already demoralized, were sliding dangerously towards unhappy punching time. I didn't want to see what would happen if one or more of them started keeling over right in front of my beleaguered troops.
I did the logical thing (I thought) and removed them from the military. Despite being rotten everywhere besides the inner organs and brain and being frigging BLIND, they nobly went back to their normal tasks, happily hauling stuff -- slowly shuffling, I should say -- all over the fort. *facepalm*
How on earth are they walking when the muscle of every limb is rotten?! Urist McManager: "Okay guys, today we're going to be hauling hair to the dump and---"
Moldy McStank: "I CAAAANNNNN HELPPPPPPP GUYYYYYS!! IGNOOOOORE MY LEAKIIIIIING FLESHHHHHH..."
Eughhhh... Finally, not wanting to send my brave heroes to an ignoble death under the drawbridge, I did the only logical thing.
I established a leper colony.
I had a large area intended for a finished goods stockpile unconnected with my main fortress, but behind most of my defenses. I quickly installed beds, tables, chairs, and food stockpiles, and started assigning the putrefying dwarves to a burrow limiting them to the colony. To simplify this process and identify them easily on the unit screen, I started giving them custom names. Smelly, Drippy, Stumbly, Unlucky...
Just as I finished channeling out the ceiling to help clear the air... since the poor guys were suffering so badly already.... they started to die off due to infection. Thank God. Poor rotten-faced bastards.
Unfortunately two of them are still alive and refuse to go in the colony. Instead, they wander about outside, in the sun, being miserable. And a horde of partially rotting wardogs I haven't had time to deal with yet, who I had previously assigned to various dwarves, have of course settled in nicely outside my most critical (and doorless) workrooms, nestled in my most frequented stockpiles. Naturally, this is right near my central stairway.
After all this, and the perpetual rotting reek in the halls for months now, it's only going to take one dwarf going crazy and I'll have some real 'fun' on my hands...
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Topic: A first for me: some spoilery fun. Slow, painful fun. (Read 3240 times)