Rescue from Paradise

Rescue from Paradise is a side quest $$ Depending on perk choices and Speech successes, one may need to complete this quest to advance the game's main quest line.

Detailed walkthrough
When inside Paradise Falls, the Lone Wanderer will have to go to the slave cage at the back of the area and talk to the kids through the wire gate (or kill Carter before his slave collar is activated and talk to Sammy nearby, thus starting the quest; however, killing Carter turns the slavers hostile). Squirrel tells the player character that they must get his computer terminal reconnected to the network so he can deactivate their slave collars and open the gates. This can be accomplished either by tampering with the terminal in Eulogy's pad (requires 50 science) or rewiring a cable junction box near the bar (the area with the sign labeled "Food") (requires Repair 40). Once this is completed, Squirrel then advises that the guard Forty needs to be distracted so they can make a run for it. The player character has the option of
 * Talking to Forty and convincing him to walk away, or just killing him instead (which turns the entire camp hostile).
 * Mezzing Forty, causing the slave camp to turn against him but remain non-hostile to the Wanderer.
 * Talk to Crimson and either convince or pay her to seduce Forty.
 * Convincing Forty that he is not being paid enough through a Speech challenge, which will cause him to go talk to Eulogy Jones and be away from the slave pen.

Once this is completed, Squirrel will tell the Wanderer that their friend, Penny, will not leave until her friend, Rory, is released from The Box. (Note that if one has killed the slavers to allow the kids to escape, Rory will have died in the box and this Speech option will be unavailable.) However, it is also possible to convince Sammy and Squirrel to abandon her if the player character's Speech is high enough. (This act grants negative Karma.) One can meet the kids outside at this point and finish the quest for full XP (900) and positive Karma. One may also wish to pass a Speech check to tell Penny to leave without him (75% chance at Speech skill 100); or if they have the Child at Heart perk, convince Penny to leave Rory there without any Karma loss. At this stage, the player character can lie to Penny and tell her Rory is safe, tell her that "friends leave you sometimes," or find the key to The Box and save Rory. Penny advises that Forty can be pickpocketed for the key, or one can find it in Eulogy's Pad; it is also possible to pickpocket it from Eulogy Jones. Once the key has been retrieved, save Rory and tell her he made it out, or if he died, tell her that he died with no Karma loss.

Once the kids have escaped, Sammy tells the Lone Wanderer to meet him southwest of here. Speak to them again and they say that they are returning to Lamplight Caverns and will make sure that MacCready allows the Lone Wanderer to pass through.

Once The Box is opened, one will notice that Rory is not a child and realize that he won't fit through the sewer pipe drainage grate like Penny, Sammy, and Squirrel. One will need to sneak him out through the front door.

The player character does not have to get Rory out of the town. They can get him out of the Box, tell him to follow them, immediately go back to Penny and tell her that he has been rescued. As he tries to escape, he will die, but Penny will be rescued.

It is possible to simply sneak Rory out of the town with no fighting if timed correctly. At dusk many of the slavers will head for their beds, and if Forty is still away from his post, the Lone Wanderer will be able to sneak right through the town and leave by the front door without any fighting.

Another method is the "running of the bulls" strategy, where the Lone Wanderer gets to Rory to follow them, and release the other three prisoners willing to escape from the pen simultaneously. With luck, the Lone Wanderer and Rory can make it to the gate while the other prisoners take the brunt of the enemy fire. This can be used in conjunction with looting of the slavers of their ammunition.

If the Lone Wanderer wants to save Rory through cleansing the town, it is necessary to release him from the Box before killing all of the slavers, or else, when the Box is opened, he will be dead, though intact. The best method seems to be to free him at midnight from the Box, lead him to the far back corner of the now open children's pen once they have run away, and have him wait there while one wipes out the slavers. (Even having him wait in the open Box seems to work fairly well.) Then, simply lead him to the gate. There will be about ten slavers awake at that time of night, depending on the difficulty level, and this will obviously turn the city hostile towards the player character. It does not appear to be necessary to kill the two guards at the entrance to Paradise Falls, as Rory talks to the player character at the town exit, at the end of which they gains Karma.

As an alternative to those strategies which require the Lone Wanderer to kill the slavers of Paradise Falls and to those strategies which just leave Rory there, there is a third option. Once the Lone Wanderer have opened the Box and gone through the initial dialogue, simply tell him that he is "on his own" or something to that effect. He will be upset and start running toward the exit on his own rather than following the Lone Wanderer there. Immediately bring up the "Wait" feature. Wait about an hour or two, and he will be transported out of Paradise Falls. The slavers will still be acting as they were. The key to making sure this works is ensuring that the Lone Wanderer "waits" before Rory can enter into any sort of combat. The Lone Wanderer will miss out on the Karma for personally escorting him to the door, but he will still show up at Moriarty's. This technique can also be used to assist the slaves the Lone Wanderer may have captured during Strictly Business without murdering the slavers, as well.

There is no reward besides Karma for saving Rory, and he gains no new dialogue in his new home in Moriarty's Saloon.

If the player character have enough Bottle Caps and a high enough Speech skill, they can simply buy the children from Eulogy Jones. He demands 500 bottle caps each for Sammy and Penny, and 1000 bottle caps for Squirrel. However, with a successful Speech challenge, the Lone Wanderer can buy all three children for 1200 bottle caps total. One can then meet the children at the front gate to Paradise Falls and simply escort them outside. Speaking with Sammy will successfully end the quest. However, completing it in this method will not allow Rory to escape.

Shooting all of the slavers will also complete the quest. Note that if the player character kills the three guards standing in front (Grouse, the random slaver, and Forty) the first time the Lone Wanderer encounters Paradise Falls, Sammy will not go inside and return to the cage but remain by the burnt-out car next to the gate. Only Squirrel and Penny will be waiting for the player character at the grate exit; Sammy will make his own way back to Little Lamplight without the need for any interaction with the player character.

Bugs

 * Interacting with Sammy in any way will cause the game to crash despite one's response. This only seems to happen if the player character bribes Grouse for permission to enter. The quest can still be completed by killing all of the slavers and then speaking to one of the other children instead. The same applies when meeting them outside Paradise Falls.
 * Even though one has to save Rory, he can die with no penalty. Penny will act as if he is alive and the quest will complete as normal.
 * If one choose to simply fight the slavers, Rory somehow escapes from the Box (even if one has not unlocked it) and joins the fight, usually winding up dead.
 * After the player character opens the Box and speaks to Rory, if they have him wait behind, leave the area and return, he may be stuck in the ground in the rubble near the Box. If one has wiped out the slavers, he thanks the player character for helping him escape and they receives Karma as though they had taken him outside. Rory then begins to run in place in the rubble as though fleeing. If the player character encounters him like this, speaking to him twice will trigger two different dialogues: one where he just thanks them for the rescue, the second where he asks them to free the kids (even if they have already been freed). This results in the player character receiving positive Karma twice.
 * If the player character enters the clinic near where they retrieve the kids, they will believe that they have been freed and this will complete the quest.