Park Street Station¶

Ready for another subway section? There’s no Ghouls this time. Promise. Instead you are facing “Triggermen”, goons with dapper suits and Submachine Guns, so if you are looking for either of those things you are about to have a ton to pick from! Head down into the station and be ready for four Triggermen in the immediate area. There is a station off to the left that you can hide behind for protection, so it is recommended you kill off the left enemies first if you need cover, then take out the rest.

When you’ve put the Triggermen down, get to looting. This station hub has a Terminal you can check out in a small room to the south, as well as a [Novice] locked door. Open it to find a saferoom with goodies, including a Safe [Expert]. There are also some bathrooms nearby, but be warned: the far bathroom section has a grenade trap if you open the middle stall, so be wary!

When you’re ready to move on, head down some stairs to the south to proceed further into the subway, being wary of a floor trap as you go (disarm the Bathroom Scale which triggers it for some XP). Beyond this you can expect to encounter a ton of enemies; nearly a dozen Triggermen are down here. Fortunately, however, this area is huge, with multiple tracks and middle section for you (and them) to hide behind. They are also very spread out, so try to stay in one section and take on the biggest/closest threats first. Move from cover to cover as you go and let your companion (if you’re still suffering the company of one) be a distraction as you take the enemies out one by one. Once you have the left side clear, continue right taking out the enemies you will discover until you have wiped them all out.

Once they are dead feel free to loot and explore the side room. The only real thing of note in this area is the door [Novice] in the western corner, which leads to a small deadend hallway. There is another trap here with a gun sitting in a holder that will fire at you as you approach the sleeping bag, so be careful. Once done, loot the Safe [Expert] here as well.

After you are done looting, head east down the tunnel (the left tunnel) which leads to one final open area before your goal. There are several more Triggermen down here, so try and get in a sneak attack if you can as they have no idea you slaughtered their buddies. Kill and loot them then continue on to find… Vault 114! Well then! Go ahead and open the vault door using the console and enter inside.

Vault 114 (Exterior)¶

After opening the Vault Door, a Triggerman will come in to investigate from the left. Take him out, then sneak over to the left now to find a [Novice] locked toolbox you can crack and then check the left room for one more Triggerman. You can explore a bit now, but you’ll be a bit disappointed: the main door to Vault 114 is locked tight. Bah! Never fear, though, you’ll get in though! Check the right room first for a terminal that you can access to learn what Vault 114 was made for (a social experiment this time, not like the craziness in Vault 81), then grab some chems on the table nearby. Head to the left room now and enter the door here. This will lead you down some stairs to a room with a hallway on the left (check the toolbox in the room) and two more Triggermen. Take them out and follow the linear path to a gigantic room of catwalks.

Here there are several Triggermen spread throughout the catwalk area, all coming from the left (the right doesn’t really lead to anything - there is a broken catwalk at the right path split that you can jump to find a crate with items, but they aren’t worth the radiation poisoning you’ll get from the nearby barrels). Head down the catwalks to the left and take out the Triggerman as you go. There are quite a few, so be careful and take them out one at a time.

Make your way through the catwalk room and into a chamber to the north-east, the most interesting feature is a hole in the floor. Don’t jump down just yet: check out the chair to the left of the hole to find pre-war money. There is more across from (south of) the chair in the open safe, and a Bobby Pin Box on top of the safe. Nab it all and head down the hole, landing on the ledges as you go down. You’ll land in a room with another terminal explaining what Vault 114 is. Pick up the Bobby Pin Box on the desk and head further in, finding a door that leads into Vault 114 proper! Finally!

Vault 114¶

Head into the vault now and you’ll see a wide-open area. Up one level from you is an NPC named “Dino” who is taunting Nick from a window. Quickly sneak up the left side of this area and up the stairs. Go ahead and hide by the doorway, as Dino is about to rush to the stairs after some taunting from Nick. Sneak attack him here and take him out (you can’t talk to him, unfortunately). A shotgun or melee attacks would make short work of him in this narrow area.

Once he’s dead, be sure to search him for the “Overseer Door Password”. Now, Nick wants you to let him out ASAP but you can explore a bit if you want (he isn’t going anywhere after all!). The note-able things you can do before letting Nick out is to check out the door [Advanced] on the middle floor (along the western end of the room across from where you came in), which has mostly junk and some first aid items. Limit your exploration of the bottom floor for now (you’ll be making your way out of here soon enough), but there is a Large Toolbox [Novice] down by the stairs (by the door), which you may want to get now as we’ll have a fight down there later.

When you are ready, go get Nick. With the password you picked up, you can simply interact with the terminal to open the door and talk to Mr. Nick Valentine… the Synth! Ha! Tell him what you want with him and he’ll agree to hear you out once you are out of here. Nick seems to be the very personification of “Private Eye”! Before you follow Nick out of the room, have things to pick up in this room, be sure to pick up the Speech Bobblehead on the desk. This handy thing gives every vendor an extra 100 Caps to barter with, which will certainly come in handy. There are also three Holotapes on the desk here: V.114 Interview #3, V.114 Interview #21, and finally V.114 Interview #87. Be sure to listen to these in order, as they are just utterly hilarious! Vault-Tec, always ensuring the most qualified people for the job become Overseer.

Go ahead and follow Nick downstairs now. You will run into a handful of Triggermen and - like all useless NPCs - Nick will give you the lead on how to deal with them. Show off your murdering skills to Nick, then continue following him through the room and down a hallway to reach a locked door, which Nick will unlock for you. He’s a fair hand at hacking terminals, and can take care of all but [Master] difficulty terminals for you. Follow Nick up the stairs and kill the man in the hallway you come across. Here you should stop and look around: there is a chair along the eastern end of the hallway with candles lit by it, near which you’ll find the Astoundingly Awesome Tales #8 magazine! This particular one will give you +5 Action Points permanently. So very nice!

Continue following Nick through the bedrooms on this floor killing Triggermen as they show themselves. On your way through, be sure to stop to loot a Wooden Crate [Novice] in the second bedroom. Fight your way up to a set of stairs and ascend to another hallway where two more Triggermen lurk. Take them both out and pick a locked door [Advanced] to the north to find a good deal of Pre-War Money Paper Money and a Safe[Master]. If you can’t pick the lock now, keep it in mind for later… you know, just in case you get a key to it, but what are the odds of that happening? Across from the locked room is a nursery you should check out as it has a First Aid Box.

Following Nick when you’re done looting, leaving the vault to reach the main “Check in” area. Nick will open the door like last time and warn you that he hears “Fat Footsteps” outside, which is your cue to save the game. You can loot more Vault 114 Jumpsuits here if you want, but after you’ve saved go ahead and leave the vault.

Park Street Station¶

Upon leaving the Vault, you will run into Skinny Malone and his new dame. Here you will soon have some conversation options. The note-able conversation option here is “Remember the Quarry” as told to you by Mama Murphy before you started this mission. Pass this and Malone… will have a change of heart. He rebuffs the girl and lets us leave peacefully by counting to 10 as we go. The daughter will storm off as well. Barring that, you can encourage violence with the girl if you wish (a much harder speech option) or just end up in a fight. If you do have a fair fight (emphasis on “fair”), take out the Triggerman ASAP as they have much lower health and can be dealt with easily. Then focus on Malone and finish him off. If you managed to talk your way out though, you could be… vindictive! As Malone is counting he and his men will not turn around, meaning you can use explosives or even just get behind them and do a sneak attack easily. It is cheap, but very effective.

Once you’ve dealt with the gangsters, continue to follow Nick outside. You’ll have to backtrack all the way through the tunnels but that’s no big deal. Once you are outside Nick will head west, so follow him until he stops in the streets and lets you talk to him. He’ll thank you and invite you to his office to tell him more about your son. Respond however you wish, but note that you do not need to escort him back (he’ll make it back just fine). This officially ends the “Unlikely Valentine” quest and, after a few moments, the next story quest “Getting a Clue” will start.

To continue with the main story you need to return to Diamond City and talk to Nick in his office… but Nick can wait. There’s a quest you may have stumbled upon in Boston Common, and if you explored Diamond City, you almost certainly started it by picking up holotapes and overhearing random chatter. All that talk about Synths will have inevitably brought up the subject of the Railroad, a pro-Synth organization that, as the name suggests, helps sentient Synths escape the Institute. Such a clandestine organization with such a powerful foe needs to remain hidden by nature, but with a little exploration, even a well-meaning dinosaur from 200 years ago can find them. Even if you don’t care to start any new faction quests right now, it gives a fine excuse to explore the north-eastern part of this island, and there’s some exceptional loot to be found here.