Booted

 is a quest in Fallout: New Vegas.

Quick walkthrough
You will find Boxcars in General Store in Nipton, who tells you about the slaves taken by the legion. You must head East until you find the legion camp. Then kill all Legion soldiers there and untie the two slaves to complete the mission. Killing Boxcars or the two slaves Fails the Mission.

Detailed walkthrough
During your visit in Nipton you notice that something isn't right. Upon entering, a very strange man who seems to be over-excited about winning "The Lottery" runs into you and keeps repeating that he has won. When you go further into the town, the Legion have taken over the town and killed almost everyone. While searching through the the town, you find a man called Boxcars in the general store.

Boxcars thinks you're going to kill him. His legs are crippled by the Legion and tells you about the lottery that the legion plays with the town of Nipton. The mayor of Nipton had the lottery ticket to be burned in a pile of tires. Boxcars was lucky that he was alive but they smashed his legs, and he is now a cripple. He explains to you that some of the Powder Gang were enslaved by the legion and headed east. He mentions that his legs are very painful and needs Med X. You then have the option to spare some for him (You get a choice of up to five doses).

You head east towards the quest marker. You may come across some Legionaries about to get into a fight with some NCR troopers, or another random encounter. You can help either side, Legion or NCR, which will lead to infamy with the opposing faction. Continue on and you will run into a couple more legion soldiers on the way.

You eventually get to the Enslaved Powder Gang members at the Legion Raid Camp. There are numerous ways to free the slaves in this camp.

There is no Negative Karma for killing the slaves after the quest is completed. Note that freeing the Powder Ganger slaves usually results in a positive increase in rep with them with no effect on your reputation with the legion, unless you kill them of course.

Alternatively, If you see no faction standing at all in your Pip-Boy 3000 with the Legion(Stats/General), then they may turn hostile once a Powder Ganger is untied. One way to get around this problem is to use a Stealth Boy and be crouching before untying the Powder Gangers. As mentioned above, you will still be able to kill the freed prisoners without a penalty to your Karma.

The captives may also be set free by carefully choosing a moment when the guards turn away, this will not lead to any complications with the Legion. This can most easily be done at night when there are few Legion wandering around, and there's just the two guards watching the Powder Gangers. If you untie them while the Legion are looking out away from the campfire, they will not turn hostile. This can be influenced by speaking to a Legionnaire from the opposite side (with you facing towards the campfire). They will remain looking out into the wasteland for a few seconds before resuming their periodic turning.

Alternatively you can attack the radscorpions just east of the camp and lead them back up to the camp. The legionaries will attack or run away leaving you free to unlock the slaves with no faction penalty. However the prisoners must be suffering from Stockholm Syndrome because they will leave and then come back to the lockup even without the restraints.

There is also a chance that the Legion may be fighting patrolling NCR troops. If that is the case, the legionnaires may either run off after the NCR troops, leaving the captives unguarded, or they may all be killed. In either case the courier can walk into camp and release the captives.

The Legion in the camp can be killed off without alerting the others, and without gaining infamy. In my case, I used a silenced Varmint rifle and made sure I was 'Hidden'. Once hidden, One headshot was all it took for each soldier. Once all killed, the captives can be set free, completing the quest. Just make sure no one from the Legion sees you killing anyone from their faction. Beware that this can glitch the game and make the quest uncompletable for a short time as you will be unable to untie the Powder Gangers. To fix this, leave and come back later. (worked for me after around 12 hours game time)

There is a scripted encounter on the highway west of the Legion Raid Camp where two merchant caravans are ambushed by Legion soldiers. At least one soldier should die in this fight. Pick up his armor, walk into the camp, equip the armor and you will be able to untie the slaves as long as none of the guards see you do it. This option causes no faction gain with the Powder Gangers or faction loss with The Legion.

Bugs

 * After completing this quest it is possible that both the Legion troops and the tied-up Powder Gangers will respawn at the quest location (Legion Raid Camp). However, you cannot untie the Powder Gangers to earn extra fame with that faction, nor will you gain "favor" with Boone.


 * Sometimes the player will see the Powder Gangers up and walking freely, they will flee (although not far) if you get into combat with the legions. After you defeat the legions, the Powder Gangers will keep walking around, when you try and "talk" to them, you will get an option to untie him or leave him tied regardless of them walking around freely.


 * When I arrived at the camp, one of the slaves was standing and free, the other kneeling and bound. Since I had to reload several times because the fight was quite hard for me, I saw two cases: One of the slaves is always kneeling and bound, the other is always standing, and in one case he knelt down and bounds appeared on him (i.e. he entered prisoner state late), in all other cases he remained standing. (Before the 1.01 patch). After freeing both the legion attacked every time ('You will regret this...'), rest as described above. Sometimes the legion attacked after freeing one. This seems to depend, if you talk first to the standing prisoner or to the kneeling prisoner.


 * Similar to the first bug, when the first sound of gunfire erupts, the Powder Gangers will stand up and start running and may even flee quite far, bugging them so if you ever manage to catch up and talk to them, no dialogue will show up. After all Legion soldiers are dispatched, the Powder Gangers will, if not too far away, walk back to their initial position and sit back in their tied status. If you free them while they are walking, the Powder Gangers will still be considered tied by the game and the quest will not be able to be finished, forcing you to load a previous save. However, untying them AFTER they return to their tied status (sitting, wrists against each other) will complete the quest normally.


 * After freeing both slaves I had to fight the legion (they saw me freeing the slaves). When I won the fight, (quite hard, since others com from the tents and join in), I had to talk again to the slave who was standing, since he neither fled, nor reacted. After talking to him a second time and freeing him with the small menu, the quest was ended.


 * Sometimes during the fight a message pops up, that you are now vilified by the legion. In my case, immediately after this pop up a legion assassin squad teleported in (the squad simply materialized around me), and they told me that Caesar had ordered my death (quick thinking guy, this...). After I won this fight, no legion soldier was alive at the camp. But all other legion soldiers I met afterward were neutral to me! And a kill squad never again showed up, while I explored the world and made around 6 levels! Very peculiar...


 * The game could glitch if you kill the 2 legions first then try to untie the slaved. You won't be able to untie them.


 * There is also a strange glitch that causes one of the Powder Gangers to be standing untied, and Recruit Decanus to be kneeling with his hands bound.


 * Yet another bug occurred for me when I fast traveled back to the site. NightStalkers appeared and attacked and killed the legion members and one of the powder gangers.  Very peculiar this quest is.


 * I tried this in the middle of the night. 2 Legion soldiers were at the camp with the hostages, with 1 hostage kneeling bound and the other hostage standing. As soon as I released the bound hostage, the standing hostage fled, and the Legion soldiers became hostile. Once I had dealt with the Legion I noticed that I still had both hostages as active markers. I attempted to catch up to one to see if I could still 'free' him, but even when I was within range to speak to him (the 'Talk' text appeared on the screen) he continued to flee from me. The same thing happened with the other hostage. After quite a while of chasing them both around to try to 'free' them, I gave up and shot one in the head, and ultimately failed the quest. (XBOX360)


 * If you're really unlucky, you may not be able to do this quest as you will not be able to speak with Boxcars. Talking to him brings up no further dialogue other than a "Goodbye" option, even if you've never spoken to him before. It's frustrating, because he is needed for two quests.


 * Sometimes when you untie the Powder Gangers after that they won't leave, and you will have the option to untie them again but it will not work but you can choose the option to untie them again and again but it will not work no matter how many times you choose to untie them leaving this quest uncompleted.


 * It is not necessary to kill the Legion Guards as they may not become hostile if the captives are free. This is unlikely to be an intended mechanic.


 * While i was fighting the legion guards a mole rat came up and killed one of the hostages, causing a mission failure (PC)