Blood Ties

 is a Fallout 3 quest. It is also an Xbox 360 and PC achievement.

Lucy West, a citizen of Megaton, wants you to deliver a letter to her family in Arefu. But the task is not as easy as it sounds, as Arefu is under siege by the Family, a gang of wannabe vampires.

Deliver Lucy's message
Lucy West can be found in Moriarty's Saloon in Megaton. She asks you to deliver the letter even though she doesn't have any bottlecaps with her.

Arefu is a small settlement built at an old freeway overpass located northwest of Vault 101. When you arrive, shortly after a Family assault, it turns out that Lucy's parents are dead, with bite marks on their necks, and her brother is missing.

Find Lucy's brother
You are given three possible locations of 'The Family' A Metro Station, an Underground Hide-Away and a Drive-In Cinema. The Family are hiding in the Metro Station. Upon entering you will be approached by an ghoul NPC asking for you to find him Sugar Bombs so he can create Ultrajet; head into the room he came from and in the door to the right. Through another door you will see two barrels of radioactive waste, you need to go through the manhole in this room and through the subway tunnels until you eventually reach 'The Family's' hideaway. There are creatures, mines and bear traps, so, watch your step.

At the entrance you will find Robert, the vigil, who will allow you in if you give him 100 caps, or use the Speech skill to gain entry for free. Then you will enter, via the maintenance tunnel, to Meresti, another Metro station, there, the Family has created their home.

The leader of the Family is Vance who is trying to help their charges so they can overcome his hunger for human flesh and drink blood instead, you will have to talk with him and he will advise you to ask the rest of the family so they tell you the rules they live by, he also gives you the password for their terminal, where you can find the aforementioned rules, and a note from Vance about the Arefu incident, which is very enlightening.

By talking to them, you will find that Ian is spending some time in isolation as he is preparing to join the ranks of The Family, further questions to the members of the family will reveal that Ian not only is aware of his parents death, but he also saw them die (which is a lie).

If you have the Lady Killer perk, you can talk to one of the women in the auditorium with all the benches. She will give you the password for the computer terminal to get into Ian's room without having to go through Vance. If your Speech skill is high enough you can get it from any of the (5) characters in this section other than Vance.

If you have the Black Widow perk you will be able to seduce Karl, the storekeeper into giving you the password of the computer terminal that locks the door of the room where Ian is, the Terminal also gives you the choices of activate the electronic security of the station and activate the security robot.

Talk to Ian and you will hear the shocking truth, it turns out that he wasn't kidnapped, but voluntarily joined the Family after killing his own parents, you have the choice of showing him his sister's letter or leave him there, if you show him the letter and have a very diplomatic and careful conversation with Vance, You can convince him to protect Arefu instead of attacking it in exchange for donated blood packs. If you ask him to show you the ways of the vampire, you will receive a perk which allow you to get 20hp from bloodpacks.

Diplomatic behavior and donating bloodpacks will make the Family's headquarters a place where you can sleep and trade. Karl sells 2 purified water bottles, blood packs, and many other things.

Returning Ian to Arefu and granting protection for them will give you some rewards from the inhabitants, also, you may use one of the beds in the West family house.

Once your return to Arefu and tell King the deal, return back to Vance to complete the whole quest, and Vance will reward you with schematics for a neet little flaming sword shishkebab that you can build yourself. Vance will also dispatch somone to stand guard at Arefu, fullfilling his end of the deal.

Bug (v. 1.00): *This questline will fail if you attack any "vampire" after you've talked to Ian and sent him home, Arefu will see you as a hostile since the game assumes that they're allies after the quest, if you took the peaceful route upon entering their lair keep in mind that you'll need to kill the guard outside (in the tunnel) before talking to Ian (or run past the guard and don't shoot back at him).*