1) Two Weeks Later…

You’ll wake up in the Citadel, being bothered by Elder Lyons. Talk to him to find out that Sarah was injured by whatever happened at the purifier, that the Enclave has been beaten back, and the purifier is churning out clean water. Everything seems to be just peachy, except for some distribution problems with the water, and the little question of whether you’re going to help the Brotherhood finish off the Enclave. Tell Elder Lyon’s that the Super Mutants are coming from Vault 87 to gain some karma. The quest “Death From Above” begins now, but before we tackle any of that nonesense, there are some other things we should do first.

2) Purity Projects

Scattered around you’ll see bottles of “Aqua Pura”, as well as drums and boxes of the stuff. Yep, this is what you and Dad fought and died to get. Head over to the Jefferson Memorial to see what’s been going on since you crashed two weeks ago.

Inside the Jefferson Memorial Gift Shop you can find Agincourt, who is as taciturn as usual, and Alex Dargon… if they were still alive at the end of the main game, of course. Talk to Sribe Bigsley, who resides in the Gift Shop to hear him whine about the work he has to do. Offer to help him and he’ll tell you about the bandit trouble the Rivet City guards have been having, as well as the unusually high rate of water consumption in Megaton. Also talk to him about selling the water, where you can either succeed at a Speech challenge or make a [Karma] check if you’re good to get Bigsley to reveal that he’s selling water to a Ghoul named Griffon. Once you’ve got those three quests, “Protecting the Water Way” , “Holy Water” , and “The Amazing Aqua Cura” , respectively, you should have filled up on all the new quests your little heart can desire. When you are done messing around here, head over to Rivet City.

3) Lepelletier’s Problems

Outside of Rivet City you’ll find Officer Lepelletier, who will direct you to go to Project Purity and bug Bigsley for free water. Gee, that can’t be helping with Bigsley’s insomnia, eh? Offer to help and you’ll be tasked with escorting a caravan to Canterbury Commons. Hopefully when you get attacked (and Lepelletier seems certain you will get attacked) by the bandits you’ll be able to find out more about them-with the ultimate goal of putting down the bandit ringleaders. Succeed at a Speech check and she’ll give you her Plasma Rifle as an advance on your fee.

4) Flushing Out the Ringleaders

Hoof it over to Project Purity, then follow the river north, staying near the coast. When you reach the Scavenger Shack under the bridge connecting D.C. to the Citadel you’ll find the caravan already well under attack. Kill the attacking Metal Armor-clad Bandits and loot them. All of them carry the note “A New Meeting Place”, which will conveniently point out their headquarters once you listen to it. For a quick freebie head north from the Scavanger shack and keep an eye to the west. You should spot a grave along the road, inside of which is the note “

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Whether its due to her incompetence or not, Officer Lepelletier is having trouble getting water to its destination (left). Kill some Bandits attacking a caravan, then find their leader and kill him, too (right).

5) Splitting Jack

Fast Travel to Wilhelm’s Wharf and talk to Split Jack. You can join his “gang” by guessing the pass phrase “Mirelurk Stew”. He’ll give you some Metal Armor and tell you to put it on-after all, any gang has to wear matching suits. Once donned you can talk to him again and convince him (with a Speech check) that he’s not going to get paid to protect something that is being distributed for free. This pisses him off and he decides to find a new gig-after him and his gang kill Grandma Sparkle. Once you join his gang, you can also challenge him to a fight for control of the gang, so long as you feel confident in your ability to kill him with a Combat Knife, a Lead Pipe, or a Nail Board, anyways. Of course, if you win, the gang goes hostile, so you might as well just kill them all outright. Either way, once the Bandits are gone head back to Rivet City and report to Officer Lepelletier. You won’t get much in the way of a reward… and by much, you won’t get anything. She’ll refer you to Bigsley for your reward. Can you see why he’s in such a bad mood? Talk to him and you’ll get a Gatling Laser, a Plasma Pistol, some Enclave Power Armor and and an Enclave Power Helmet, as well as some Electron Charge Packs and some Energy Cells.

6) Apostles of the Eternal Light

Assuming Megaton isn’t a radioactive crater in your game, head over there now. East of the entrance you’ll see a lady named Rosa providing a “Water Beggar” with some charity. It ends up having an unintended side effect, though-a slight case of death. She’ll come complain to you afterwards. Dig for some information and she’ll reveal that she got the “holy water” from some “Brother Gerard” over in Springvale. Head up to the entrance to Megaton, where you can find the note “Holy Water PamphletH on the door. Great, another cult has sprung up. We better look into this. The whole idea of Dad’s research was to create water that wouldn’t kill people.

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The life-giving gift of water turns goes horribly awry outside Megaton (left). An insane new cult has sprung up in Springvale (right).

7) Holy Light Monastery

Once you arrive at Springvale you’ll find a new area, the “Holy Light Monastery.” A loon named Brother Gerard will talk to you and give you some ‘“blessed” Holy Water. You’ll catch a few Rads from this “Holy Water”, but the loon won’t talk to him until you “cleanse your tongue” with it. Drink it and talk to him again to get him talking about his order, eternal light, and the fact that the water is filled with “Atom’s Light.” That’s right, these freaks are taking the Aqua Pura we all worked so hard to purify, and they’re irradiating it!

Ask to get inside the church and he’ll tell you to visit their Tabernacle to catch some Rads-by this he means go into the “monastery” and activate the switch on the pulpit to catch some Rads (you’ll get more if you go play by the tub). If you disarm the two Radiation Traps, however, you’ll disable this method of catching Rads. You can alternatively kill him and take his Monastery Key, or steal it from him… or just pick the cellar door leading to the Eternal Light Monastery [Very Hard]. If you want to play along with the loonies, you can also just go expose yourself to radiation at the alter. Once you’re sick with Deadly Radiation Poisoning, go talk to Gerard and he’ll give you the key.

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Two powerful Ghouls defend the Holy Light sect of the Church of Atom (left). Led by this crazy, these cultists have been irradiating the water so many people died to purifiy (right).

8) Spiking Salvation

Once in the Cellar talk to Mother Curie III, who will tell you that four “armored angels” gave her some Aqua Pura, and in her religiously-inspired delusion she misconstrued what was going on, and decided that it was a sign from her god. Instead of distributing the water, she decided to spike it with radiation in an attempt to pass on “Atom’s Glow”. By this, she means that the “Holy Water” will turn people into Ghouls (if they survive the radiation poisoning), something that is apparently a good thing in the eyes of these people.

There are three ways to go about resolving this quest, the most obvious of which is simply killing everybody. There are two unique Ghouls in the basement, “Sun of Atom”, and “Atom’s Champion” that serve to spice things up, but it’s still not much of a challenge. If you have Deadly Radiation Poisoning, you can convince her that you’re Atom’s Prophet, and get her to stop spiking the Holy Water. Lastly, you can succeed at a [Charisma] check and convince her that people can’t be tricked into salvation-they have to willingly accept it. Either way, once the problem is resolved and the Aqua Pura is no longer in danger of being re-irradiated by cultists, head back to Scribe Bigsley, who will give you 300 Caps for your trouble.

9) Griffon’s Hustle

Two down, one to go. Head over to the Museum of History, where you can find a Ghoul named Griffon giving hawking his wondrous “Aqua Cura” tonic. Listen to him sell his bottled water-it’s apparently a cure for everything-including balding and ghoulification, as well as an aphrodisiac. Talk to him and get yourself a free sample of Aqua Cura by succeeding at a Speech challenge.

Check it out in your inventory to find out that Aqua Cura-whatever it is-is actually less savory than Aqua Pura. Ask where he got it from and succeed at another Speech check, and he’ll tell you he bought it from Scribe Bigsley-which we already knew. He’ll stick to his guns and say that it reverses radiation damage to ghoul physiology, however. Point out that your Pip-Boy detects that it’s actually irradiated and succeed at a speech check and he’ll start out by threatening you, then admitting he is just selling the Ghouls regular Dirty Water, and saving the real Aqua Pura to sell to Raiders, Slavers, and other folks the Brotherhood of Steel doesn’t trade with. He’ll end by trying to pretend he’s actually not a bad guy, but by now we know better. If you’re evil enough you can succeed at a [Karma] check and get the same information. He still won’t divulge the location of his headquarters, so we’ll need to head off to speak to Scribe Bigsley.

10) Museum Authority Building

Scribe Bigsley will readily admit to selling the water to Griffon to fund other water deliveries, and divulge the location of the Aqua Pura dropoffs as the “Museum Authority Building”. Head back to the Mall to find this new location. Inside you’ll find several Ghoul Guards, one of which has the note “Griffons’ Bottling Instructions”. You can also find the note on a table near some bathtubs on the bottom level. Other than some spiffy Wigs, the only notable loot in here is a Nuka-Cola Quantum in the ladies bathroom on the top floor. Listen to the note “Museum Authority Building” and head back to Griffon.

11) Busting the Hustler

Tell him the gig is up. When you’ve got him by the balls, you can coerce him into bribing you to keep quiet for 20% (160 Caps) of the profits per week, or you can succeed at a Speech check to get 50% (400 Caps) per week. You can also just take a one-time buy out of 300 Caps. If you don’t like the idea of buying him out you can force him to tell the Ghouls that his Aqua Cura is bogus. It won’t end well for Griffon, but you can loot his body for a solid 600 Caps. Lastly, you can tell him to just sell the real Aqua Pura. He’ll agree to sell the real stuff, as selling to Raiders and Slavers was probably too much work anyways. Once this quest is done, it’s time to head back to the Citadel and speak to Scribe Rothchild and revive our struggle against the Enclave.