OK. Loaded, transferred, started up, all systems nominal. Beginning debug menu:
On that same saved game, I went ahead and revealed map, debugged sound and found the exact tile it was coming from. It was always described as footsteps, and when my hearing returned the highest sound level in game terms noted was 4. While I actually did find the edge of an ant colony 2 tiles to the west, there was nothing above (to +10 levels) or below (to -8 levels) the actual tile producing the sound except for 3 NPC’s that were on guard. (Which they never responded to the sound with “what was that”, etc.) The offending tile was a field tile btw. At -8 below, was hellsmouth (gotta go digging, this is a new one on me
)
The thing is, that this is the location of my farm homebase and the tile itself is on the ground of a faction camp. So I have been over this area literally a hundred times with no previous affects. And I still am uncertain as to how a sound level 4 would make my characters ears bleed and go deaf, sorta thing.
Ah well. Since I am obviously the only one experiencing this, I will just chalk it up as “oddball glitch that doesn’t matter anyway because this character will have to be respawned on a new map regardless” kinda situation.
EDIT: Or, as I am sure some will say, ant infestation.