Birds of a Feather

Birds of a Feather is a quest in Fallout: New Vegas.

Quick walkthrough
This quest can be activated after meeting Gloria Van Graff in Freeside. She will start the Courier off with small tasks such as guarding the entrance to the Silver Rush and delivering a package. After gaining enough trust, she'll recruit you for Jean-Baptiste Cutting. Jean-Baptiste explains he's looking for Rose of Sharon Cassidy and that he "just wants to talk to her".

Cass is located at the Mojave Outpost unless you have already gotten her as a companion via another quest. To get her to follow you, you will have had to complete the jobs given from the Crimson Caravan in the quest You Can Depend on Me.

Bringing Cass back to Jean-Baptiste will reveal his true purpose is actually to kill her. From here you can choose to let him kill her, or become hostile by saying: "Shoot her and you'll regret it." If you choose this method you will have to kill all the guards inside the Silver Rush, including Gloria and Jean. The simple alternative is letting her die and getting paid 350 caps, losing Cass as a follower. However, if you have the Terrifying Presence perk, you can get Jean-Baptiste to back down by telling him to "Raise that gun and I'll kill everyone in this room." This effectively postpones the conclusion of this quest; it remains active/available, should the player wish to revisit Jean-Baptiste at some point later in the game.

Detailed walkthrough
1. First you will have to guard the front door. A series of 5 non-player characters will come up to you, and you must remember to be polite, not allow drunks, and search everyone before allowing them inside. The third customer will require a 65 speech check to be able to be searched, otherwise you have to be rude to him and deny him entrance. The fourth non-player character will be carrying a bomb. If you choose to let him in, he will blow up the entire store and most of the items displayed as well, including the plasma caster, failing the quest. If you choose to search him, he will attack you, forcing you to kill him. The last person to appear is Pacer (unless he was killed during G.I. Blues or Kings' Gambit), wishing to talk to Gloria, but not doing so and asking you to deliver his message, which will make him mock you, saying "a good dog you are". If you agreed (on the other hand Simon will congratulate you, since you "stuck to the rules"). Although you can choose to tell him "why not tell her yourself" with Simon congratulating you for keeping a cool head (there are no negative consequences in the quest). If you are hostile with him the whole way through, he will then attack you. Once he is dead it will say that the quest is failed, but this is false. Report to Gloria and she will pay 200 caps. If you followed Simon's instructions to the letter, passed the speech check, treated all customers politely - including the drunk - and agreed with Pacer about speaking with Gloria, she will pay 300 more caps.

2. You will need to deliver a package to a man a bit east of New Vegas, who speaks like a Caesar's Legionnaire. With a high speech check (75) you can get 200 caps from the man. Killing the man after the exchange will gain Infamy with Caesar's Legion and fail the quest. Also if you happen to have enemies of any kind in tow when you come upon the man he will flee the area and you will fail the quest.

3. You will need to recruit Rose of Sharon Cassidy as a companion and travel with her to the Silver Rush so that she can be executed by Jean-Baptiste. (If you have a companion with you when attempting to recruit Cass, you will need to split with him/her to allow Cass to follow you.) If you bring her to Jean-Baptiste and allow her to die while in dialogue, you will lose her as a companion and fail her companion quest if you have not already completed it. However you will succeed at this part of the quest and receive 350 caps as a reward. Jean-Baptiste will tell you to talk to Gloria, which will initiate the final portion of this quest.

NOTE: Once you talk with Gloria, the final part of the quest (see 4 below) begins immediately and you will not be able to retrieve any items from Cass's body that she may have been carrying for you. And when you are returned to the Silver Rush after the last part of the quest, Cass's body (or ash pile) may or may not be there, so you may not be able to retrieve your belongings at that time either. So it is recommended that you either bring Cass to the Silver Rush without her carrying anything for you, or that you retrieve your items from her before you talk with Gloria after Cass is executed by Jean-Baptiste.

If you end up killing Cass instead of recruiting her, the journal will update to tell you to 'Let Jean-Baptiste know that the Cassidy girl is dead'. Upon returning to him, you will still be rewarded and the quest will end as normal.

You can also choose to resist her death. This results in a fairly difficult gunfight, especially if you're low level. Armor-piercing rounds are highly recommended, and atomic cocktails are also useful. Of course if you are high level with melee or unarmed skills, then it is possible to take on all the Van Graffs using a power fist or similar weapon. It is probably best to take out Jean-Baptiste first, which should be no problem since he is standing right in front of you after the dialog stops.

As soon as you threaten Jean-Baptiste he'll run for the plasma caster on the left side of the display table. This weapon will deal massive amounts of damage to you and your companions. In addition, every single Van Graff Thug will turn hostile. Your best bet is to tell Cassidy and any companions you might have with you to wait in the corridor that leads to the restrooms and quickly steal the plasma caster before Jean-Baptiste or a thug picks it up to use it against you. Then join your companions in the corridor and deal with the Van Graffs one by one with the plasma caster.

Alternately, if you have C-4 and a Detonator, drop your C-4 just outside the door to the hallway where Jean-Baptiste is. Have Cassidy enter the hallway with you & close the door, then go into the bathroom behind Jean-Baptiste. Initiate combat and kill Jean-Baptiste. If you can take him down quickly enough, you can switch to the detonator and use it when you see the hall door open. The blast should kill most of the Van Graff Thugs, leaving one or two for you to clean up.

Don't forget that Simon, the guard outside, will also be hostile once you exit the building, as will the Van Graff crier. You can also isolate Jean-Baptiste and focus on him first, but he has very high DT. All the guards and his sister do not have as much, so you might need to kill them before moving on to him. Doing this will result in you failing this quest and no EXP reward, but you will be able to complete Cassidy's quest for that reward and loot all the equipment in the Silver Rush shop which can be kept for combat use or sold for a huge amount of caps.

Normally you are forced to either let Cassidy die or fight the Van Graffs as soon as you initiate dialogue with Jean-Baptise, but if you have the Terrifying Presence perk, you can exit the dialogue and take more time before coming to a final decision on how to handle the situation. This option works countless times, but the quest won't continue until you choose a more permanent choice.

4. If you choose to just let Jean-Baptiste kill Cass, then Gloria will ask you to help her with one more thing. A deal with the Legion is going down in the Abandoned Warehouse, and things might get rough. During the deal, NCR troopers storm in, and together with the Van Graffs, they take out the Legion. The courier is actually not required to kill any Legionaries, as the NCR and the Van Graffs will easily take care of that. The reward for "helping" Gloria is 1000 caps, Freeside and NCR fame, and the Van Graff combat armor. This battle can be quite interesting if the player has sided with the legion. Both the ambushed legion soldiers and NCR forces are hostile, and companions may enter the fray killing both sides and netting both NCR and Legion infamy.

Bugs

 * If the Kings Quest line has been completed prior to starting work for the Van Graffs Pacer never shows up making you unable to complete the quest to guard the door. This bug can sometimes be remedied by attempting to enter The Silver Rush again.
 * While you are guarding the entrance of the silver rush with the other guard, if you speak to him he will say "Welcome to the Silver rush" as if he had never met you before.
 * When you have to deliver the package and you fast travel the guy may get stuck in the rock.
 * After dealing with the fourth customer, Pacer walks by and starts a chat with Simon. If you aim at Pacer's head, he interrupts the chat and will just stand there. The quest log will not be updated and the quest will not advance.
 * When your fellow guard goes to the chest to "get your stuff," he repeatedly does the standard animation but never opens the chest and gives the player his/her equipment. The quest can be continued, but unless the player can pick the lock and steal the equipment, the equipment can not be acquired.
 * After telling Gloria that the package has been delivered, she tells the courier to speak with Jean Baptiste. However, it is possible for him to be in the locked part of the building and he will not appear, even after waiting for more than 24 hours in increments of 1 hour. Fix it by using these console commands:, then . Or use sneak and lockpick to enter the back room. A Stealth Boy proves useful here, and after talking to Jean you can loot the store with impunity.
 * Jean-Baptiste Cutting may not turn hostile when told "Shoot and you'll regret it". Instead he simply walked over to Cass, said his line and killed her, by reloading a save and killing him before he talked to her, the quest Heartache by the Number randomly failed while I tried to kill all guards. This was avoided by reloading the same save again and killing all guards before the quest failed, though it is unknown what caused this.
 * If you tell Cass to go wait at the Lucky 38 after you tell Jean-Baptiste to kill her, he will then follow her all the way to the Lucky 38, only traveling when the player is in the same area as him, and also being able to walk right in to the Lucky 38 without any penalty and will go to your suite and kill her. He also does not have to talk to Victor to use the elevator. This may come as some solace in her dying, as you may keep her ash pile in your suite.
 * It is possible to steal from the footlocker next to Simon and get the Van Graff combat armor. However once you steal it, it becomes stuck in your inventory marked as a quest item; even if Simon gives you another Van Graff armor as part of the quest. Because the armor is a quest item it doesn't actually weigh anything even though it says it weighs 25. If you complete this quest and receive another set of the armor they will stack, removing the quest item tag from the original stolen armor and giving back it's weight.
 * Also during the door guard section of the quest, if the Courier denies the fourth customer entry he will turn hostile. If the Courier deals the finishing blow in the resulting fight, Simon may freeze in place. He is supposed to walk over to the corpse, but will instead stay next to the door with his weapon out and become unresponsive to dialogue. If that doesn't happen, Simon may walk over to the corpse and ask for you to help him "move the body from the store front". He will stand there staring at the Courier, and will never speak the dialogue that triggers the fifth customer. He will, however, become hostile if you go far away from the Silver Rush, like normal. The easiest way to avoid this is to let Simon kill the fourth customer by himself - he's more than capable.

This bug may be bypassed by one of the following two options:
 * Completing the entire quest
 * Open the console, and type
 * Completing the first part of the quest
 * Enter Silver Rush and speak to Gloria Van Graff
 * While the initial dialog options are displayed, open the console and enter
 * Accept the quest regarding the package delivery.
 * Exit the Silver Rush and proceed as normal.
 * This caused you to miss the XP of the first part, but gave you the Van Graff combat armor. The armor is stuck, and marked a quest item, but read the bug just above (first one) to learn how to fix this.


 * More so in the second leg, when going to the point to meet up with the Strange Man, you will find him standing on a set of rocks as you grow closer to him. At a certain point, he will glitch into the rock, disappearing and unable to interact with the Courier. Yet he is still marked on your compass.
 * Killing Gloria Van Graff by sneaking (V.A.T.S., fire glitch), before talking to Jean-Baptiste Cutting during the part where he wants to kill Rose of Sharon Cassidy, will cause him to glitch. By killing Cass, then coming back to you and repeating his dialog about Cass. You will be stuck in place, and the only option is to use the Terrifying Presence Perk, or pick the last option to fight, any other option will leave you in place. Or reload a previous save.
 * After granting entry to the fourth 'gambler' using the first option, it's possible that Simon will walk to the door and you will no longer be able to interact with him. He will simply stand there, looking at the door. To bypass this, you should reload from an earlier save and redo the mission, selecting the 'pat-down' option.
 * If you have finished Heartache by the Number peacefully, then choose to defend Cass, and kill Gloria Van Graff, she will be mad because of the player decision to kill her after turning the evidence, and then ask you to finish the job by killing Alice McLafferty.
 * If you are siding with the NCR and have the NCR emergency radio and have an NCR ranger or trooper as a follower, when you enter the warehouse for the last part of the quest, after Gloria Van Graff talks to you, the members of Caesars Legion will then kill your follower and the quest will not progress. You will need to load an earlier save and kill your follower yourself.
 * When guarding the other side of the door with Simon, the second Gambler that comes out of the Atomic Wrangler, after speaking to him and passing the Speech check of 65, quickly speak to him again and do it again for an extra 65 EXP.

Behind the Scenes
When you expose Cass to Jean-Baptiste, he will say "As I live and breathe, Rose of Sharon Cassidy!" - this quote is similar to Oblivion when you are talking to the thieves wearing Gray Cloak of Nocturnal, saying: "As I live and breathe, the Gray Fox!"

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