Rifts: Alliance destroyed

We pick up where we left our intrepid adventurers, down inside the city of Alliance.

Thunderheart focuses his attentions on the computer in front of him. He successfully turns the machine on and it displays a logon and password prompt. The group searches the room and finds a sticky note with a logon and password. It was well concealed on the side of the desk. Thunderheart enters in the logon and password and gains access to the computer's main screen. On the screen is displayed a trash symbol, a folder called Catalog and a drive named C. He tries to open the drive and it prompts for another login and password. He tries the ones he has, but with no luck. Thunderheart next opens the folder named Catalog, which turns out not to be a folder at all but an interactive screen that shows the layout of the entire floor. He clicks on one of the rooms, which then displays the room with the tree on vid-screen. The group slowly watches the tree transform into some sort of living thing. Ralph and the mayor are wierded out by this image.

(It is here that I learn something about game mechanics. Just because a person fails a horror factor check doesn't necessarily mean that they have to make a save versus insanity, so I make a house call on it at that moment. If you roll a natural 1 on the d20 versus horror factor, you then make a save vs. insanity. Luck was with me on this decision, as the mayor rolled a natural 1 and then an 11 on the DC 12 vs. Insanity save with no bonuses. He picked up another insanity, which worked out kind of well for the group.)

Anyways, they get past this and Thunderheart opens the trash icon which Roger so elegantly pointed out that it wasn't empty. Inside the trash folder lies to documents. Since Thunderheart is the only one who has Literacy: American, he reads that the two files are labeled: XYZ and Memo. He instinctively opens the one that says Memo; inside was the following:

AFT

To all AFT members, there is no immediate danger to Alliance. The Simvan army will no attack us. They know what we have however, so we do need to prepare for infiltration. They may send some complete strangers or even well-known friends to confound us. If they find out where the power is coming from, we will need to prepare for battle.

Sincerely,

Major Drew Jackson

The group then questions the mayor. The mayor beats around the bush and the group notices. They get him to tell the truth. They find out that AFT stands for: Alliance Federation of Trade. They also learn that the AFT is a group that was once based in Alliance until the leaders were recruited into the 1st Apocalyptic Cavalry (I screwed this up too, I apologize; I said Army when it is indeed Cavalry) which is based in Fort Prospect (Kearney, Nebraska), about 500 miles from Alliance. The mayor tells them that he has never heard of a Major Drew Jackson.

Meanwhile, Ralph checks out up top in Alliance and sees no guards posted anywhere on the towers. After reporting back, he continues to check for a way out that doesn't require them to go back up to the city (This is after he hears the mayor tell everyone that there is another way out on one of the floors down here). Ralph then continues his search of the two remaining floors, nothing on the ninth floor, just an empty steel room with a light in the ceiling, same exact room on the seventh floor except some wooden crates which contain the same red sauce that he had found in the mayor's house (Mmmmmm). He returns and the mayor tells him that those rooms are just storage.

The group then remembers about the caves they found when they first pressed the first button. They never searched those, maybe that's a way out. They proceed to the caves and after 20 minutes find themselves on the other side of a rotten wooden door. The hear a gun cock on the other side. Ralph issues forward and says,"Hello, may we come inside?"

A voice says to come on in. He is dressed as a preacher. The preacher then tells them about the four monsters, that once described are classified as Simvan, that came running out of down here about two days ago.

The group then decides to leave Alliance behind; with Dirk's vision and all the guards missing being a strong motivation. The group gets to the other side of the river and not an hour out, they hear this huge boom and all who sense PPE get a horrorific feeling of a huge PPE source growing and then, BOOM, nothing left. They then see the town of Alliance in flames.

The group continues onward. About three days after crossing the river, they notice a small group of Simvan, but they also notice the group. The group notice that the Simvan are hurt and have no armor, but are warry since they have never encountered the Simvan before. The Simvan are still getting closer, approximately 200 yards out when Ralph gets a hit with his weapon and the lead Simvan goes splat. 19 MDC damage to a creature that has no MDC armor, yeah, SPLAT!

Thus ends the session