Exploring The Nucleus¶

Time to help Atom’s Faithful, and explore the Nucleus while you’re at it. Even if you don’t particularly like these goofy cultists, helping them out can prove lucrative for you, and it might as well be done while everybody is all friendly. You know, on the off-chance that the main quests force you to pick sides? Anywho, this quest starts off with the following three objectives:

• Help Zealot Ware
• Show the Icon to the High Confessor
• Assist the Grand Zealot
  Let’s talk to a bunch of people here first to get the quests you need, then you can set about completing them one by one, business as usual. Once you complete the gauntlet of quests for everyone, then “What Atom Requires” as a whole will be finished.

First thing’s first, from the entrance head south through some deactivated decontamination arches (you can find the note “Repairs in Progress” which will give you the sub-objective to “Help Sister Mai”), then south through some blue double doors to reach a dry dock with a submarine in it. Ignore the pre-war relic for now and continue south into a shack to find some Fusion Cores and useful junk on a shelf. Score!

Ignore some stairs to the south for now and continue past them and turn west to find Zealot Ware, who happens to have a problem which he’ll gladly pile upon “What Atom Requires” . Talk to him about Brother Devin, whose devotion he admires… although if you speak negatively of this devotion, he’ll be relieved to find another like-minded individual, and will ask you to convince Devin to quit his radiation-fast before he realizes - too late - that his religion is false. In return he’ll promise to give you some “anti-RAD meds” as well as the recipe. Fair enough. Offer to talk to Brother Devin to start the quest “The Trial of Brother Devin” .

Continue west until you run out of west, then turn south up some stairs before turning east into some shacks to find The Archemist. She serves as the “doctor” for the Children of Atom, but honestly, you probably don’t want to seek out medical attention from somebody who thinks radiation is a GOOD thing. You can also find Zealot Theil nearby, who will explain a bit about the organizational structure of this branch of the Children of Atom, if you care for such fare.

Further east you’ll find Sister Mai, who serves as the general store merchant here. Talk to her as you wish, but be sure to check out her goods, as she sells the “Recon Marine Right Arm” , which is unique in that it’s arm armor that “Increases a wearer’s movement speed by 10%”., a mod normally found only on leg armor. After perusing her wares, offer to help her out and she’ll explain the problem, directing you to the Vim! Pop Factory and starting the quest “Ablutions” . Yeah… it’ll be a while before that gets taken care of.

Head up some stairs behind (south of) Sister Mai’s store to find Brother Kane, who sells arms, armor and ammo, including the “Kiloton Radium Rifle” (which has the Explosive prefix - nice!) and the “Recon Marine Left Arm” (“Temporarily slows time during combat when you are at 20% or less health.”) Continue east to find a room full of mattresses with a table in their midst, on top of which is the note “Taste Test” .

Ignore the stairs going up along the southern side of this structure (they lead to the command center, hence it’s covered in the “Best Left Forgotten (DiMA’s Memories)” section). Instead head downstairs back to near Zealot Ware and from him head north up a ramp, then up some stairs and through more shacks. Near one of the many makeshift shrines here, on the overturned bottom of a chair balancing on another chair, you can find the note “Put It From Your Mind” , which mentions the “holy bombs” in the submarine. Not good…

Continue north to find Grand Zealot Richter, who will give you another quest if you let him. Seems some former cultist joined a new club, and you know how cults hate it when their cultists do that! Accept the quest and you’ll be told to speak to Zealot Theil for more information about this renegade, starting the quest “The Heretic” in the process. Afterward you can ask for more details, if you wish.

From Richter head east to reach the submarine, and more specifically a ladder leading into the “Vessel”. Here you’ll find and talk to High Confessor Tektus, merrily sitting on his throne, looking every bit like the dangerous zealot he is. Show him the Mother Icon if you haven’t yet and he’ll be convinced good things are going to come from you. You can ask him a TON of questions here so ask him what you will, but be sure to ask the High Confessor if he needs any help and he’ll entrust a task of rooting out a traitor to you. This starts the “Witch Hunt” quest, and you’ll get the “High Confessor’s Note” to facilitate your search.

Witch Hunt¶

Might as well work on this quest, since it’s local, and all. The first thing you should do is read the “High Confessor’s Note” in the MISC tab to see what he slipped you, which just says “Aubert”. Well, that’s to the point. If you continue north through a bulwark you can find Sister Aubert near the reactor. If you can withstand the RADS you can talk to her and learn a bit about her job, the submarine, and their uncanny desire to get power to the submarine’s nuclear arsenal. She also has an opinion on Tektus, which you can exploit by passing an easy speech check “Don’t like Tektus?”

So, it seems like they don’t get along, and the quest will update and direct you to search her bunk now, which is through another doorway to the south. Search the south-western corner of the mattress (near a table with a bunch of skull candles on it) to find “Edgar’s Note” , which mentions a key that opens a secret footlocker where the drop off letters to each other. If there’s a plot afoot, that’ll be the place to look, eh?

To find this secret stash head back to the entrance of The Nucleus and into the locker room near (east of) the exit. You can find the “Footlocker Key” behind the bench here. Pick it up and head back into the sub. Once you’re in the sub, go down a level to the floor below and into the room on the right (the locker room I mentioned up above). Open the footlocker in the corner to get “Aubert’s Note” . The smoking gun, as they say.

From here there are quite a few choices you can make:

• You can give this note to High Confessor Tektus to have Aubert taken care of, of course, but your more morally-upstanding party members will HATE that. It completes the quest though.
• Talk to Tektus and pass a moderate speech check to lie for her. This ends the quest outright, but it can also be done after the following option…
• Confront Aubert with the note, after which you can even choose to blackmail her for about 96 Caps if you wish, and then you can STILL give Tektus the note (very evil!). Or you can choose to give her the note and let her destroy it (don’t worry - you can still complete the quest by lying for her). Your more moral companions love that by the way. You can also tell her to make a run for it, after which you can turn her in or lie about her loyalty, whether she’s still around or not.

The Trial of Brother Devin¶

This quest is really short, and shorter still if your Charisma is up to snuff! Brother Devin is up by the entrance to The Nucleus, praying near the sub. Go equip your Charisma gear here, quicksave, and talk to Devin. You’ll learn he is fasting until Atom’s Messenger comes and visits him. You can ask what he saw as well, but what you want to do is pass the hard speech check and tell him YOU are Atom’s Messenger. If you fail, reload and try again. Use items if needed - it’s really a faster approach. If you succeed at convincing him, it’ll make him complete his fast and let’s you go report in to Zealot Ware.

If you weren’t able to convince him with speech checks, however, report back to Zealot Ware and he’ll come up with another - albeit blasphemous - way to save Devin from himself. Impersonate the Mother! He’ll give you a Sack Hood and some Children of Atom Long Rags, and instruct you to get your RADS up to 75% (easily done with a visit to the reactor room of the submarine - or the radioactive water below the sub). Once all this is ready, talk to Devin, over-act (as usual) and free him from his bondage… after you scare him into staying off drugs and handing you some Caps, if you’re a jerk.

Either way, return to Zealot Ware and he will give you four of his potions and, more importantly, the “ Ware’s Brew Recipe“ . You can make this yourself at cooking stations with 3 Tree Sap, so be sure to collect them whenever you see them. You can also return to Ware regularly to collect more for free. Yum!

The Heretic¶

The last two quests were pretty easy, being contained within The Nucleus. This one will be a bit more work. Start out by paying a visit to Zealot Theil, who will tell you the story of Gwyneth and what happened, suggesting you search the “Holy Sites” that Gwyneth is defacing. Exit the Nucleus at this point to see where the map has marked these Holy Sites at. Hey! An excuse to explore new places! Everybody loves those!

This will be pretty easy traveling, but if you want to speed it up a bit go ahead and fast travel to Atom’s Spring. From there you’ll want to travel a bit to the southwest, to the map marker where you will uncover the map location “Glowing Grove”. Here check out the “Heretical Sign” and you’ll take it with you.

Time to head to the second marker now, so head southeast, jumping over or going around whatever rocks bar your path and killing any wildlife that may be along the way. Eventually you’ll come to another map marker when you arrive, marking the “Radiant Crest Shrine”. Check out the Heretical Sign here as well, which will be automatically pieced together for you, forming the “Campground Banner” , and revealing your next destination.

The campground in question is just to the south-west. Head directly to it (follow the map marker) and kill the Wolves that are likely hanging around (they may be to the south, just watch out for them). Once done, search the only cabin you can actually get into to (the eastern-most one) and you’ll see that Gwyneth has clearly been living here. On the floor in here you can find the “Gwyneth’s Journal” holotape. Listen to it and learn the root of her heresy, and where she’s at now.

The church is to the southwest and is hard to miss. It unlocks a third map marker, the “Ruined Church”. Quicksave as you enter the church and put on your Charisma gear if you don’t have it on already, then talk to Gwyneth now, who is busy ranting about nothing. Not “nothing”, but rather “Nothing”. Yep, she exchanged one bogus religion for the worship of the void. Oh boy…

You have some options here with what to do with her. You can of course kill her like you were asked, but you also have two speech checks, one easy speech check (which will convince her to leave the island) and one moderate speech check (which convinces her to return to The Nucleus). Do what you wish, and once you are done with her, go to the back of the church and climb up to the top to find an [Advanced] Safe you can pick and a [Novice] First Aid Box. You can head to the steeple as well to find a sniper rifle and ammo.

Head back to The Nucleus now and report in to Richter to tell him you are done. Ask about payment here (my bad habit…) and he’ll give you a reward: “Atom’s Judgement” , a high damage melee weapon. Sweet. Note that you can talk to him afterwards for an easy speech check about his previous life if you wish.

This ends this quest. As for “Ablutions” … put it aside for now, as the location it takes you to is also part of the main questline for Far Harbor. Why bother going there twice if you can wait and kill two birds with one stone? Anyways, that’ll be all for the side-quests in The Nucleus for now. Time to go recover DiMA’s memories.