Oasis (quest)

Oasis is a side quest in Fallout 3. It is also an Xbox 360, PC achievement, and a PlayStation 3 trophy.

The ritual
When the player approaches Oasis, Tree Father Birch will ask that the player follow him, saying that "He" has summoned them. If agreed to, Birch will unlock the gate to the village and lead the player to an outdoor hut. Birch explains that he is the leader of the Treeminders, and that "He" has summoned the player to the village. Although vague about who or what "He" is and wishing the player character to find out on their own, a speech check may be passed to discover what "He" is. The Treeminders ask that the player drink a sap in a ritual to purge them of all evil that might be inside, so that "He" may go unharmed.

After the ritual, the Lone Wanderer is placed in The Grove, where they meet Harold. Harold reveals his true identity, and begs for mercy; after being stuck in the same position for decades he is eager for death. The other dwellers of "Oasis" have ignored Harold's wishes so far, and ask instead to either suppress or expand Harold/Bob's fertility.

To your left after leaving The Grove, an argument between Tree Father Birch and Leaf Mother Laurel is witnessed. Birch wishes to stop Harold's growth with a sap (the same one used in the ritual) in order to protect him, and Laurel wishes to apply a liniment that will accelerate it, to spread his influence to the entire wasteland. Both want the player to side with them, leaving the others' wishes ignored.

This leaves three basic choices to go about this quest:
 * Side with Birch and apply Birch's sap to Harold's heart to stop his growth.
 * Side with Laurel and apply Laurel's liniment to Harold's heart to accelerate his growth.
 * Side with Harold and destroy his heart, killing him in the process.

Instead of these options, Harold may be burned down with a fire-based weapon such as the Shishkebab or flamer (plasma and mini-nukes seem to work, along with Nuka-grenades). Strangely, shooting and/or using a melee weapon on Harold also causes combustion. If this is done, the player will receive negative Karma, and all of Oasis will become hostile.
 * NOTE: Neither the A3-21's plasma rifle nor the Burnmaster will work for this; you have to use the non-unique variants of these weapons.

After the argument
The rest of the Treeminders, who are willing to talk at this point, will express their views on the situation. Your reward is based on what you decide to do to Harold's heart and who you speak with before entering the caves.

Regardless of what you choose to do to Harold's heart, speaking with Sapling Yew beforehand is recommended. If you ask her about her "god," a speech check will become available allowing you to discover Harold's fear. If you pass the speech check (discovering that Harold is afraid of fire) but choose not to burn him down to complete the quest, she will give Yew's bear charm after completion of the quest. The Child at Heart perk can be employed as an alternative to guarantee success.

Siding with Birch
 * Speak with Branchtender Maple before entering the caves and ask her about how she ended up in Oasis. She tells the player about how she felt that she was chosen to come here, and fears that outsiders will eventually find and ruin the Oasis.
 * Speak with Branchtender Cypress before entering the caves and ask him how he became a Treeminder. He states how Birch took him in, and told him how important it is to keep Oasis a secret from the outside.

Siding with Laurel
 * Speak with Bloomseer Poplar before entering the caves and ask her about "her god." She will state her views about how Harold is not only her god, but everyone's god, and should be shared with the entire wasteland.
 * Speak with Branchtender Linden before entering the caves and ask him how he ended up in Oasis. A speech check can be passed to get him to explain how he was once a Brotherhood Outcast, and was found injured by the Treeminders. After being nursed back to health by Bloomseer Poplar herself, he decided to join them.

Siding with Harold
 * There is no need to speak with anyone prior to entering the caves, with the exception of Sapling Yew.

Burning Harold
 * As is stated above, Harold is afraid of fire, and can simply be killed with any flame weapon. The flamer, heavy incinerator, plasma rifle, missile launcher, Nuka-grenade (doesn't even have to detonate, just hit him), plasma grenade, mini nuke, or Shishkebab will work on him. Once on fire, he will roar loudly and shake violently until dead. This will cause you to lose Karma, and all of Oasis will immediately become hostile.
 * The following weapons do not set Harold on fire: the Firelance, frag mines, plasma mines, and the Burnmaster.

Into the caves
The main entryway to the cave system is in the main Oasis hub area. The player can either pick the lock (100 lockpick required) or ask Branchtender Cypress for the key.

Resistance in the Oasis Caverns mostly consists of mirelurks, mirelurk hunters, and mirelurk kings (depending on player's level), along with the odd radroach. There's plenty of decent loot to be had in the tunnels, so search extensively. Notable loot inside the Sunken Chambers includes a D.C. Journal of Internal Medicine (in a box by the table, underneath a baseball glove), a couple Stealth Boys, and a single pre-War book. If you need crutches for the railway rifle, there's a pair on the bed. There is also a silenced 10mm pistol on the table and two cherry bombs in a crate. After getting the loot, continue to the next pool of water where there is a mini nuke underwater in the center of the pool and two stimpaks by skeleton further ahead. In the next chamber straight ahead, are two ammunition boxes with missiles and flamer fuel (flamer fuel in an easy locked box and missiles in an average locked box). There is a missile, blood pack, RadAway, purified water, and a stimpak in the northeast of the area lying next to a skeleton. Other than that there is no notable loot except a few empty Nuka-Cola bottles, tin cans, milk bottles, and small ruined books.

In order to advance, going underwater is necessary at times, so if it doesn't look like there's a way through, try checking underwater. Near the end of the Sunken Chambers, a thumping will be heard. This is the sound of Harold's heart. When reached and interacted with, the options mentioned before will present themselves to the player. If the heart is destroyed, then the Barkskin perk will immediately be obtained from being exposed to the radiation. This perk grants an inherent 5% damage resistance.

Aftermath and rewards
A nearby door will lead into another cavern, which will lead back to the grove, where either Birch or Laurel will be waiting depending on the choice made. If the heart was destroyed, Birch will be there, expressing regret over not listening to Harold. If the Sap or Liniment was applied, Harold may be spoken to, and will have some dialogue about the choice, where he regrets being selfish.

At this point, the Treeminders who supported the player's decision will supply him/her with gifts. The Treeminders may also be spoken to after this to get dialogue about said choice. Note that Sapling Yew will give Yew's bear charm if the speech check was passed, regardless of the choice made. She is also the only one who will give a reward if the heart is destroyed.

Sap applied

 * Branchtender Maple will give the player Maple's garb.
 * Branchtender Cypress will give the player a missile launcher and two missiles.

Liniment applied

 * Bloomseer Poplar will give the player Poplar's hood.
 * Branchtender Linden will give the player Linden's Outcast power armor.

Heart destroyed

 * The Barkskin perk is rewarded.

Sapling Yew

 * Sapling yew gives the player her charm if the speech check was passed prior to the quest completion, or if the speech check is failed, having the "Child at Heart" perk will unlock the dialogue to get Yew's charm. (This increases the player's Speech by 10 permanently.)

The Sunken Chambers
After entering the Sunken Chambers, walk until you can turn left, do so, and continue forward until you reach a table. Various other stuff of minor importance.
 * 1 pre-War book on top of the trunk next to a box of darts.
 * 1 D.C. Journal of Internal Medicine left from the table in a crate under a baseball glove.
 * 1 Stealth Boy on the table along with 1 silenced 10mm pistol and 10mm ammo.

Into the dead center of the irradiated pool water:
 * 1 mini nuke
 * 1 Mentats
 * 2 Stealth Boys

As you continue the road (near the skeleton):
 * 1 Stealth Boy on top of 2 ammo boxes.
 * 1 Chinese assault rifle.

Just before reaching Harold's heart, turn again to your left and you will find another skeleton near some stuff of minor importance.

The Damp Cave
You can access this cave by a door near Harold's heart or southeast of Harold is a cave. The cave is noticeable by a white rock above the water. The entrance is under water and the door has an easy lock on it, with the Oasis cave key.

Inside the cave there could be mirelurk kings, mirelurk hunter, or standard mirelurks, dependent on the player's current level.

When you come back above water the second time, on your left will contain:
 * 1 Buffout
 * 1 Box of 10mm rounds
 * 1 10mm pistol
 * 1 Nuka-Cola Quantum
 * 1 stimpak

At the southeast side of the cave ( just straight ahead ):
 * 1 ammunition box locked very easy
 * 1 sniper rifle valued 31 caps(20% CND)
 * 1 stimpak
 * 1 RadAway
 * 2 Fission battery
 * 1 Med-X
 * 1 combat knife valued 14 caps (35% CND)

Behind the scenes

 * Yew said that "to judge the living and the dead" during the ceremony is a reference to the Apostles' Creed.

Bugs

 * Yew will not give her charm if the Lone Wanderer did not speak to her before he/she killed Harold.
 * After talking to Harold/Bob, if you return and talk to him again after he tells the player he needs time to say goodbye to Bob, the player may become trapped in a circular conversation with no way to exit but reset. (Note from random player, I once had this happen, but I selected an ignorant or rude dialog option and it let me out just fine. You get stuck if you rush.)
 * If you enter Oasis, but leave before the ritual is complete, Father Birch could mysteriously vanish. This makes it impossible to complete the quest without burning Harold. You can get him to come back if you wait in a place where he goes everyday (his chair, for example) for 24 hours. Once you've stopped waiting, he will appear in front of you and you can continue the quest normally.
 * Sometimes, Sapling Yew will not offer you her charm, even if the speech check/perk check is completed. Also, sometimes completing quest at night (coming out when most are asleep) Sapling Yew cannot be found (and no bear charm); however completing back to Oasis during daylight (tried after 7:00 AM) or waiting until the sun rises solves the problem. It may also be solved by speaking to Sapling Yew before you go to the caves and asking her about his secret.
 * Sometimes, Bloomseer Poplar will not offer you Poplar's hood if you applied Laurel's Liniment even if Leaf Mother Laurel says Poplar has a gift for you.
 * After leaving the Oasis caves, regardless of how you handled Harold's heart, either Laurel or Birch will be inside Harold's area and the gate will be locked and require a key, and they will not come out. The gate out of Oasis will also be locked and will be red; the only way to escape is to kill Birch, if you sided with Laurel, and use his key to escape, but this will fail the quest as all the residents of Oasis will turn hostile. You can get around this by going through the Damp Cave in the chamber with Harold's heart. The Damp Cave leads right to the grove. You will be able to speak to Birch or Laurel and completed the quest, but you will have to kill them for their key to escape, as both the door to the Grove and the door out of Oasis will remain locked. Killing either will turn all of Oasis hostile and you will be unable to get the rewards from the Treeminders.
 * Your crosshair may freeze and not be able to move if you enter the cave before you start the quest. To fix this, start the quest and drink the sap. Also, as an added tip, you may want to use V.A.T.S to move the crosshair so that you may speak to Tree Father Birch.
 * A few of the Mirelurks will be glitched in the water if you kill them there. Rarely this will make leaving the caves impossible to leave and cause your Xbox to freeze after doing what you decided to do to Harold's heart. To fix simply drag them out of the water.
 * Sometimes when going through the path with the beds to the chain link fence, the game will lock your player being unable to move, use your Pip-Boy, or shoot guns. All you can do is look around, crouch and change view as if you’re sitting on a chair style. To fix the PC version press the ~ key (or equivalent) to enter the console and enter the command "tcl" without the " this will state collision off then walk to the gate, make sure you are above the floor and enter console again and enter the command again to restore clipping. You should be able to now open the gate! To fix this on a console, load a saved game from prior to the argument between Laurel and Birch and then make sure to see their argument and speak with them while they are still near the chain link fence. This bug may occur because there is a point near the chain link fence where the player triggers the scene in which Laurel and Birch argue. If Laurel and Birch leave this trigger point without the player seeing them argue, the trigger point may remain active and lock the player when they approach. Load a saved game and while Laurel and Birch are still close to the chain link fence, walk towards them and trigger the scene with their argument. The trigger point should then deactivate and no longer lock the player.
 * After the conversation between Laurel and Birch, the player may not regain his/her ability to do anything besides look around in one place like they should. This can be fixed by going into the console on PC (~ key) and typing "EnablePlayerControls" and pressing enter.
 * If you go through the caves and come out the other end and miss interacting with the heart altogether the game can freeze if you try to go back in.
 * Crash: Some PC users may experience a CTD (crash to desktop) when they attempt to initiate a dialogue with Harold the talking tree. Upon selecting any of the three dialogue options, the game will crash when Harold tries to say his second part of the dialogue. It has been discovered that the audio files relating to that part of the dialogue are corrupted, and a user-made fix has been released here. If you do not want to visit that link, simply download Crash Fix.zip this file and install it as you would a normal addon. Then retry the dialogue.
 * Birch may not begin the purification ritual after the player drinks the sap.
 * The other Treeminders may also be spoken to after the argument, and can give gifts after the quest. Note that it has been reported by a PS3 user that if not spoken to, they may not give the rewards after the quest, whereas a 360 user has claimed that it is not necessary. As long as all the Treeminders are not angered through dialogue, any path through it should work.