Beyond the Beef

Beyond the Beef is a quest in Fallout: New Vegas in which a well-known rancher named Heck Gunderson asks the Courier to track down his son Ted Gunderson, who disappeared in the Ultra-Luxe Casino Hotel. Ted was kidnapped by Mortimer of the White Glove Society, who is attempting to return the White Glove Society to cannibalism.

If the Courier has a bad reputation and/or the Cannibal perk, Mortimer will ask the Courier to help the White Glove Society by murdering Ted and framing Heck for the killing. If the Courier does as Mortimer asks, Mortimer reveals that the standard of luxury at the Ultra-Luxe was threatened by Heck, who was driving down beef prices to the point where anyone might be able to afford it. In addition, Mortimer will ask the Courier to hunt down the original target, and to persuade Marjorie to allow the White Glove Society to resume the practice of cannibalism.


 * NOTE* Even if you have already killed Ted and have NOT informed his father about his death, you are still able to approach Mortimer and begin his "favor" by lying and asking where Ted Gunderson is. He will then tell you that he's in the kitchen and will give you the necessary keys in order to "kill" him. Howevever, you will not be able to frame Heck and continue this line of quest completion. Your only options are to tell Heck 1 of 3 reasons why his son is dead.

Detailed walkthrough
Note before you begin: This quest involves a lot of getting attacked, so you may want to smuggle some weapons in. If your sneak isn't high enough, use a Stealth Boy. Another solution is that you can steal all of your weapons back after they are taken. They are stored in a metal box at the feet of the casino cashier, behind a restricted area. If your sneak is high enough, or you can spare a stealth boy, you can easily steal it all back. There are a few ways to skin this cat if you don't have the bad reputation to sign on with Mortimer. If you talk to Heck at the bar, he'll tell you that his son was kidnapped and ask for your help. Ask around until Marjorie gives you a key to go upstairs and speak to the investigator. Upon going to see the investigator, you will find him dead with an important matchbook on his person and a group of white gloves will attack you, and may knock your followers unconscious. Upon dispatching them (concentrate on one to get his cane if you haven't armed yourself), take their clothes and dress up like them. No one will seem to mind that you've killed them. Meet the investigator's contact in the steam room at 4pm in the bath house. From here, you will have three ways to complete the quest:

Sneak into the member's only area and drug the wine
The wine will be in the kitchen next to the stove where you would prepare the meal in the following walk through. Drug the wine with Med-X and at least 25 Medicine Skill and have the head waiter bring it down. Once everyone falls asleep, sneak Ted out.

Sneak into the member's only area and take the head chef's place, preparing the "meal"
There are multiple ways to go this route, but they all require getting in to the Investigator's room. Speak to Marjorie to learn about another investigation, as well as the Society's cannibalistic past, then talk to Mortimer. Use truthful answers to get him to give you the key with no hassle, then, if you have a high speech skill, you can lie about being a cannibal to get him to give you the keys you need for later.

Once inside the Investigator's room, be prepared for an ambush by two white gloves wielding canes. Grab the matchbook from the investigator and the clothes from the attackers, then wait in the bath house sauna. Chauncey will walk in around 3:30PM and stay until a little after 4PM. Talk to him to learn about the banquet, Mortimer's plan and, if your Strip and/or White Glove Society fame is high enough, honorary membership to the Society (though this isn't necessary if you get Mortimer to trust you in the first place). After this an assassin with a silenced .22 will kill Chauncey and attack you, if you don't have any weapons steal a cane from a white glove, then you can hide behind the door and sneak critical the assassin.

Head in to the kitchen however you can. A speech challenge will let you by the guards. When you get to the cook you have multiple options. High speech will get him to give you the recipe, a medium speech check will tell him that there are radroaches in the pantry, then he will run there, this gives you a good chance kill him. A high medicine will get him to yell about hit horrible upbringing and cause him to quit, leaving you with the recipe and the job to cook for the banquet. If none of this works, you can pickpocket his freezer key and recipe, then lock him in the pantry. If all else fails, you can just kill the chef, take his key and recipe and drag the body to one of the side rooms. Hide there yourself too when the head waiter comes to pick up the food or he will attack you. On a side note, there is a recipe sheet for Brahmin Wellington on the counter in the kitchen that you can steal for yourself.

Cooking still requires either a 6 INT with the recipe or high survival without. Prepare the meal and call the head waiter through the intercom. After the head waiter takes the food up, go and get Ted with the freezer key and bring him to the dining room. Speak to Mortimer and reveal what he was trying to do to the rest of the White Glove Society. He will then flee and you bring Ted back to Heck in the Casino. You will gain both Strip and Society fame for this route, and likely will not have to fight more than the two previously described ambushes.

NOTE: Timing in Mortimer's speech is everything. If you approach him too soon you will be unable to expose him to the rest of the society. Also, it is very important that you leave your companion(s) in the kitchen when you go to expose Mortimer, because as you run up to Mortimer to initiate dialogue, all the white gloves will get up to attack you, but as soon as you're done talking to Mortimer, they stop. If you have a companion with you, your companion will fight the white gloves and break the quest.

NOTE: If Mortimer begins to walk away in the middle of his speech, only standing in front of him and getting wailed on until he is done will prevent failing the quest.

Lay waste and kill everyone in your way
You may want to have backup such as Boone before considering this method. If your Alignment isn't evil enough to do this quest, it certainly will be by the time it's finished. First, do everything up until the you find the dead investigator. White Glove members will attack you and the best bet for this plan of attack is to flee the casino, wait a few days until they forget your crimes enough to allow you entrance to the casino again. Enter and the door guard will ask for your weapons, take the third option that mentions blowing his ass away, then choose the option with [Attack] preceding it. Continue to lay waste to everyone until you reach Mortimer. Try to talk with him to see if your Alignment is where it needs to be. If it's not there yet, kill him and take his keys, this will allow you entrance to the kitchen where you can rescue the son.

There is a lot of killing, but there are lots of Nuka-Cola and Sarsaparilla bottles to be stolen at the cost of your alignment. Some would consider this the spoils of war. Even with all of the White Glove society wasted, you can still peacefully return the son to Heck and receive the 500 caps and 500xp.

Note: With a high enough speech level (62) the quest can be completed solely by talking. You may get Mortimer to admit that he is a cannibal and you can agree to "take care" of Ted for him. The majority of the way to Ted's hiding place can be reached using speech checks. Though you will need to lure the chef into the pantry and lock him in from the computer to avoid him attacking you and causing the White Gloves to become hostile. This route also means you don't have to go to the investigators hotel suite, poison the wine, or prepare an alternative meal for the white glove society.

Use White Glove Society outfit as disguise, Find Ted, Sneak him out
Note: Used 'silent' weapons for this, silenced .22 and cane.

For this method you must enter the investigator's room only to be attacked. You must then kill the two Society members to gain their outfits, the canes are also useful if your weapons aren't great/have been taken. Put on the disguise and head to the kitchen area.

Once inside make your way towards the kitchen with Philipe in it. You will be stopped by a Society member in the main corridor but you do not even have to pass a speech check/repair check etc. as the unskilled option is fine as you are disguised. He will suggest you go upstairs and make yourself useful but will not enforce this.

Once you reach the kitchen you must get rid of Philipe. There are several ways to do this through either a medicine speech check, a normal speech check, locking him in the freezer or assassination. Once this is done make your way towards Ted who is locked in a freezer (open by looting/pickpocketing Philipe or computer hack). Talk to Ted and then proceed to leave with him.

There is a main corridor which leads to the stairs which lead to the room with the brahmin carcasses and ultimately the exit. This corridor is patrolled by society members. This corridor is dotted with rooms which you can duck into whilst sneaking. Keep the door closed before you exit the kitchen and enter the corridor, watch the society members on the compass and wait for them to walk past the door. Sneak and enter the corridor and quickly duck into the next room closing the door behind you. The society members appear to have a low perception and if they have walked a couple of metres past the door they will not detect you (done w/ 40 sneak). If one spots you, quickly duck into a room and close the door (so no one else is alerted) and then kill them.

Once out of the kitchens meet with Heck and reunite him with his son.

Turning the society back to cannibalism
If you have the Cannibal perk, you will get an extra dialogue option with Mortimer, also seen it work with a speech check of 62. After telling him how you crave human flesh, agree to help him out either by talking Ted into believing it was a misunderstanding, or by killing him and using his blood on Heck's suit, thus framing him. After you have done that you must talk to a Securitron and tell it you have heard some going ons in the casino. The Securitron will attempt to arrest Heck, whom decides to go down fighting and is instantly killed by the robot. Another given is that you must track down the original human meal and either bring him to the hotel, or knock him out and throw him in the dumpster where the Society will come for him.

6) You can also convince Mortimer to allow you to replace Ted with your companion (confirmed with Boone, Veronica, and Cass). To do this, talk to him about a rumour that the White Gloves eat human flesh, then pass a speech check of 62 and follow subsequent dialogues until the "hushed" dialogue option arrives, when you scroll down on your options.

Mortimer will be very thankful for your tremendous sacrifice, but your partner will become a "delicacy" to the Society. You will gain a lot of reputation with the White Gloves and some reputation on the strip, as well as bad karma. You can still convince Marjorie to convert back to cannibalism after this.

Quick walkthrough
Returning Ted to Heck:

There will be three options for conversation with Heck after he is reunited with Ted.

1. You can lie and tell him you don't know who took him. This gains you reputation with the Strip as well as gaining reputation with the White Glove Society. Heck will also give you 500 caps.

2. You can tell Heck that it was a member of the White Glove Society. He then says he will blockade food from coming into all of the Strip. You can:

a. Agree with him. The effect this has on the strip is unknown. Fill this in if you decide to take that route. This will gain you infamy with the White Glove Society as well as lower your reputation with the strip. 500 caps.

b. Tell him not to punish the whole strip. He however will not listen to you and blockade the food anyways (outcome still unknown). Lose reputation with Strip. 500 caps.

3.Attempt a speech check of 35 to convince him to only punish the man responsible. Outcome is increased Strip (Neutral->Accepted) and White Glove Society reputation (Neutral->Idolized) along with 500 caps he promised.

NOTE: Remember that by completing this quest, the quest Pheeble Will will fail!

Bugs

 * Some of the following bugs will occur when you simultaneously take path 2 of the above Quick Walkthrough and agree to help Mortimer. For example, if you've already visited the investigator's room and will be going to the Steam Room, do not speak to Mortimer about his Craving and help him with his problem. In addition to Mortimer exiting the Members Only Area before ending his speech and you being attacked by many White Glove Society members (including Majorie) when you attack Mortimer during his speech, there may also be the problem of chef Phillipe not spawning.


 * Sometimes Mortimer starts walking towards the exit in the middle of his speech, stopping him while he's walking or while he's standing at the podium, he'll attack you no matter what you do in this situation; and so will his allies (Head Waiter, Marjorie). You'll gain lots of bad reputation with the White Glove Society, personally I got past "Hated". You'll get attacked by all White Glove Society guards on your way to out of the casino. When completing the quest, you'll gain good reputation with The Strip.
 * I don't know the solution to this problem, but I did do some bad stuff in that casino that you should avoid, perhaps that will fix it. I pick-pocketed Mortimer before I had started this quest, took the members only key and went inside the Members Only Area - which instantly aggravated the White Glove's sitting in the diner, impossible to flee from, I had to kill some of them. This gave me bad reputation with the White Glove Society, but putting on one of their costumes made it possible for me to walk inside the casino without getting attacked by guards. I also brought Rex, the robo-dog companion, who were quite annoying in there.


 * If you fail the quest but manage to get Ted Gunderson out of the Ultra-Luxe casino, he will continue to follow you as a second companion. However, unlike proper companions, he can die during battle.


 * This hasn't been confirmed yet, but I am not able to contact Marjorie as she and the rest of the White Glove Society are stuck in their nightly meetings. Waiting, leaving the casino, or sleeping haven't solved the problem so as of now, I'm not able to complete the quest.
 * This happened to me. Marjorie and Mortimer never left the VIP area after (in-game) weeks had passed. Had to moveto player them both to continue on the quest.


 * Ted Gunderson may become invisible during the quest, similar to the Powder ganger bug. This seems to have no effect as his name is still shown and you can still interact with him. It's a severe inconvenience though as he can get "lost" in the walls. Only known way to fix this is to somehow force Ted into another room and refreshing that room.


 * The door to the deep freezer where Ted Gunderson is being held remains inaccessible after the dinner has been served and the deep freezer key obtained from the chef.


 * Ted Gunderson wont follow you through area doors -- after rescuing him from the kitchen he will be unable to leave the Gourmand. To fix this, leave the casino, then quick travel to the North Vegas Entrance. He will appear there with you. You can then travel back to the Ultra-Luxe to turn in the quest.


 * I had a problem where Mortimer would leave the room during his speech, thus leaving it incomplete and making it impossible to reveal Ted at the right time. If you confront him on his way out of the room, he just attacks you.
 * There is a way around this on PC- enter the console when Mortimer starts to walk away from the podium and use the command 'setunconscious 1'. He will freeze in place and continue his speech. When he finishes, target him again and use 'setunconscious 0' and he will start to walk away again, and you can confront him.


 * I recently encountered a bug with Ted. I sneaked him out before looking into the investigator's room. Now, he is with his father like normal, but there are still quest objectives regarding him such as Mortimer wanting you to talk to him. This is exceedingly frustrating and I'd advise you to navigate around it.


 * When waiting to meet the investigator's contact, Chauncey, in the bath house, the game crashes. Use wait and quick save frequently to work around it. PC version.


 * When starting a conversation with Chauncey, the game crashes. It appears that the closer you stand to him when you start the conversation with him, the less likely it is to crash. PC Version.


 * Completing the conversation with Chauncey and attempting to leave the Bathhouse through the north-eastern door to the Casino Floor locks the game en route. Loading an older save (prior to entering the Ultra-Luxe) and going through the quest again from the beginning did not resolved the issue.  Somehow circumvented by either constantly quick-saving or not looting either Chauncey or the Assassin, or both.


 * NPCs would walk around continuously after being drugged. Talking to them only brought up their inventories.  Was unable to complete the quest.


 * If you make the food but fail to bring Ted up immediately after the food, the banquet will end and Mortimer and the other important White Glove Society Members will have left the hall, making it impossible to parade Ted and expose Mortimer.


 * After stashing Carlyle in the dumpster and traveling back to The Strip North Gate, I was unable to pass through the door as it needs a key again. Therefore I am unable to contact Mortimer what-so-ever on the Xbox 360 version of the game.


 * After distributing Ted's blood in the hotel suite, if you're killed all the securitrons on the strip, you'll never be able to tell one about the blood you found. The quest arrows just keep pointing to their corpses.


 * (I've encountered this once.) When starting a conversation with Chauncey, it's impossible to find a way to get out of it no matter what you may try to click on. If this happens after you've gone through the complete dialogue, reload your last auto and speak to Chauncey once more. (PS3)


 * (XBOX 360, possibly all platforms) If you sneak into the kitchen of the White Glove Society prior to starting Heck's quest, it still allows you to drug the wine and call the head waiter down.  If you do this, and then start the quest, you are now unable to do a few of the optional objectives that involve drugging the wine and calling the head waiter down.  However, the quest is still able to be completed.


 * If you don't pick the dialog option when speaking to Chauncey asking about "other suggestions for freeing Ted" you will NOT get the additional option to prepare the fake meal to oust Mortimer. The oven will not be accessible to make the fake strange meat pies and you will not be able to call down the Head Waiter to pick up the fake strange meat pies.  The only options left will be to kill everyone on your way out or drug the wine to sneak past.


 * If you left your NPC's in the kitchen area and attempt to go back to retrieve them without taking Ted to his father first, Ted's AI might bug out and he'll go retrieve a weapon in the basement. Then stand still in an attack pose refusing to follow you. And if you bring your NPC's up to the White Glove Society room without being a member (after dealing with Mortimer) they will be hostile to your NPC's and begin attacking.