I Put a Spell on You



I Put a Spell on You is a side quest in Fallout: New Vegas.

Description
Camp McCarran has been compromised, and an agent is feeding information to Caesar's Legion about NCR troop movements, find out who this agent is.

Detailed walkthrough (NCR)
At some point, or upon asking James Hsu about problems at Camp McCarran, you will be asked to speak with Captain Ronald Curtis, who is located on the ground floor of the Camp McCarran terminal building to the west of the escalators. He will then ask you to speak to Carrie Boyd or Contreras (Although he says that Contreras isn't "above" suspicion). Talk to Boyd, and then ask her about break-ins. She will say that there have been break-ins at the control tower every night. Ask her for an access key. IMPORTANT: Do not inform Curtis about that lead if you want to save the monorail. If you do so, he will still go to the tower but he will not talk on the radio, and your character will have no way of knowing his plans to destroy the monorail until you speak to Hsu after confronting Curtis (or pickpocketing the codes).

Go out to the control tower. The most direct route is to go out the back door between the escalators on the ground floor. Move back by one of the planes to the right (the plane closest to the wall is a good place), and wait until about 12:30 a.m. You may want to save the game prior to doing the wait.

Sometime at about 12:55 a.m., Curtis can be seen walking towards the tower. However you can also wait until around 2:50 a.m. and enter the building, he will already be in the tower talking on the radio. If you do choose to wait outside by the planes at 12:55 a.m. it is very important that you remain hidden; otherwise he will confront you and ask why you're there. If you end the dialog successfully, he will then walk back into the base and you will need to wait until the next day (unless you pass a speech check of 50 to keep him on course after a brief return to the terminal). If Curtis starts shooting at you, run outside to the tarmac, then run back to the tower without opening fire on him. Enter the tower and exit, Curtis will no longer be aggressive. It's possible that Curtis may not appear on the tarmac and will already be inside the tower. If the lights are on, he's already there. If you don't see him by 3 a.m., enter the tower and stay hidden as per the next instructions.

If Curtis doesn't see you, he will walk into the tower. Follow him inside, and stay hidden at the bottom of the stairs while you listen to him talking on the radio. The quest will update and tell you to disarm the monorail. If you have a high explosives skill (35) or high science skill (45), you can choose to go directly to the monorail, which is accessed through a door in the Northeast corner, second floor, of the main terminal building. The bomb is located inside the train car, at the air vent, next to the inside door. Otherwise, you will have to pickpocket the Activation Code off of Curtis for a loss of Karma. You can also confront Curtis, in which case he will become hostile, and you can kill him without loss of Karma or rep. If you kill him without confronting him, when you report to Colonel Hsu, Hsu will pull his pistol and shoot you, without giving you the option for dialogue. After Curtis becomes hostile, he is fair game to kill. Then loot the Activation Code from his body. (If you don't see him head into the tower go into the tower at 2 AM and you should hear him in a conversation over the radio.)

Once the bomb is defused, if you have not already killed Curtis you may wish to return to the control tower and finish him off for the extra experience and his equipment, as well as the "history point" for Boone's I Forgot to Remember to Forget Companion quest. Be sure to kill and loot Curtis before speaking to Hsu, to gain extra experience you will not get if you do it afterwards (because he commits suicide). Return to Hsu, he'll reward you with some caps and a reputation boost. Upon killing Curtis (before reporting to Hsu), the NCR guards on the tarmac may turn hostile on you (killing him silently should help avoid this problem), so run quickly back to the terminal. You should have no problem collecting your reward and XP from Hsu despite the hostile guards outside.

You can also complete the quest and gain the Experience Points with killing Curtis in the tower before hearing the radio conversation (though this is not recommended). When you report it back to Hsu, he will be surprised and tell you Curtis could not be the spy as he was the leader of the investigation. After that, it will be revealed that there's a bomb on the train, the explosion of which you won't be able to prevent. After the train explodes, report it back to Hsu, and then the quest ends, with you gaining caps and Fame, but a lesser XP reward of 350. With the monorail destroyed, you will need a very good reputation with the NCR to complete "No, Not Much."

Detailed walkthrough (Legion)
After receiving the quest from Hsu, talk to Curtis and choose the option "I know who you are, and I work for the Legion too." This option will be available after you have completed The Finger of Suspicion. Go through the speech options until you get the quest stage to blow up the monorail. Follow the map marker to the garbage can in front of the ticket counter, and take everything inside it. If you don't take everything, you won't be able to frame Davey Crenshaw.

Once you picked up all the items in the garbage can, go to Hsu and tell him you will investigate the information leak. Then go to the monorail. If your reputation is high enough you can just walk past the soldiers. If not, then there is a change of guards at 9am and 6pm, which should give you a short time to sneak to the monorail without getting any problems with the guards. Alternatively, you can put on an NCR uniform and the guards will let you pass without attacking. Now enter the monorail, go left, and there is a vent on the wall which you can activate to plant the bomb. The quest tells you to leave the monorail and watch it depart, do not leave without it blowing up as it may stop the quest from being completable.

Next enter the building, stay upstairs and go into the concourse. Go left and head to a footlocker that your map marker will point to. Put Abraxo cleaner, conductor, fission battery, monorail sabotage plans and wonderglue into the footlocker. Take a left and head outside following the map marker to Davey Crenshaw, who can be killed in a special way without firing a shot, but it requires at least 40 Sneak and is accomplished through dialogue. Head back inside and speak to Colonel Hsu, the first option telling him about the evidence will reward 100 caps, so will the second option using speech, and both are still repeatable, which is a bug but a nice way to get a repeatable 100 caps if you need them. The third option doesn't give you anything.

Head back to Curtis and tell him he's in the clear for 550 xp and 150 caps.

Behind the scenes
undefined "I Put a Spell on You" is a 1956 song written by Screamin' Jay Hawkins.

Bugs

 * Sometimes, after killing Curtis and obtaining the codes, the monorail will not permit entry, instead only showing 'take monorail to the strip'.
 * To avoid this you have to speak only once at Curtis (so you can continue your mission) in order for you to be able to listen the conversation about him planting the bomb. If you try to speak to him about this a second time, there will be a second dialogue about him saying that he will find the spy alone and once you go at the tower he will attack you without listening that he planted the bomb. And this will give you the only option for the railway to be destroyed.
 * A bug will occur on the Legion side of this quest if you have a high rep w/ the NCR if you talk to Curtis first rather than Colonel Hsu first. Curtis will talk to you, and give you all your information, but you will not be able to get the explosives out of the trash can by the ticket desk.
 * sometimes after Crenshaw has been framed, Curtis will stay in the control tower attempting to report in. Talking to him will result in his usual response when you discover him in the tower. A possible fix for this is to sleep in an owned bed for 24 hours. Another possible fix is fast traveling to the entrance of Camp McCarran, which corrects his location.
 * Sometimes, as soon as the PC enters the monorail area in an attempt to disarm the bomb, the Monorail will depart immediately and the bomb will detonate, even if you head directly there making no stops.
 * There is a bug when trying to eavesdrop on the conversation causing Victor to appear randomly standing on the steps blocking your way. No conversation is held by the NCR on the radio, thus causing the monorail to explode no matter what you do.
 * After successfully entering and eavesdropping on the spy, leaving the control tower causes any followers to stop following. They will wait in front of the tower until you talk to them and tell them to stop following and then to follow you again.
 * If you end this quest without saving the monorail, Hsu will not grant you the reinforcements for Bitter Springs, thus making the Quest No, Not Much unsolvable. However, reaching Liked status with the NCR allows Hsu to send the reinforcements before completing this Quest.
 * If you decide to leave the tower when you're supposed to listen to the conversation and fast-travel to another location, after ~3 hours Curtis will appear and ask you what you are doing there (in another language with normal subtitles). If you end the conversation well, he will travel back to the camp. However, you will not be able to listen to the conversation after this.
 * If you're on bad terms with the NCR and initiate this quest as a Caesar's Legion supporter, then get on good terms and speak to the Colonel about completing the quest for the NCR. The explosives in the trash can become non-existent and the Control Tower becomes vacant.
 * Sometimes no matter what time or day you're there, the spy will never show up. A possible solution is to reload an earlier save.
 * If Boyd got locked in the interrogation room during Silus Treatment, you will be unable to speak to her to complete this quest. You can draw her out of the interrogation room by punching a soldier without killing them in the adjacent room.
 * If Curtis starts a gun fight with you in the tower, 10 of Spades may suddenly appear out of nowhere.
 * If you need Col. James Hsu to send troops to Bitter Springs for the quest "No, Not Much", when you get to the monorail part, get into the monorail and defuse the bomb. Then, while still in the monorail, quick travel to Fort McCarran. You should be able to go straight back to Col. James Hsu and ask him to send troops to Bitter Springs, and he'll say yes. If you go back to the monorail, it'll depart and explode. This a small workaround if you need to get the "No, Not Much" quest completed without the monorail blowing up.
 * After defusing the monorail bomb and reporting Curtis as the spy to Hsu, returning to the monorail results in NCR personnel becoming hostile.
 * There is a chance that the explosives will not be in the trash can by the ticket counter.
 * You may not be able to communicate with Boyd to continue the quest if you kill Silus when you first enter the interrogation room. Specifically, this happens when you successfully convince Silus you are working for Caesar through a series of Intelligence checks and then continue to attack him after Boyd asks you to leave the room while Silus is no longer aggressive. It appears Lt. Boyd is no longer able open any dialog with the player after this. This can be fixed by resurrecting Silus through the Console and speaking to him again (you might need to use the Console to unlock the interrogation room door). If your Speech is over 50 you should get a dialogue option to threaten to beat him up. If you select that option Silus will turn hostile but will not attack you; simply kill him again and leave the interrogation room. Boyd should be outside and you can talk to her again.
 * You may not be able to enter the Monorail because of a invisible wall glitch before you inform Hsu, to prevent this problem you need to inform Hsu that you killed Curtis and then proceed to the monorail as fast as you can, however there is a good chance you won't get there in time, thus causing you to fail the Quest. Alternatively you can restart the quest by using in the console on PC to fix the glitch and allow you to walk onto the monorail.
 * After blowing up the monorail when informing Hsu who blew up the monorail then it will let you continue to let you telling him making it possible to get infinite caps from the quest. You can continue to do this after you inform Curtis that you destroyed the monorail.
 * If you help the Legion blow up the monorail but do not have a high enough Speech or reputation level with the NCR for them to help you, you have to go back to Curtis and say "Hsu won't let me help". Curtis then tells you to rig the monorail to explode regardless. However, a glitch may mean that you can't plant the bomb, making the quest impossible to complete. The monorail can still be used to travel to The Strip.
 * If you kill Curtis and then report to Hsu, choosing the 'You won't have to worry about Intelligence leaks' dialogue option will render the quest impossible to complete; upon defusing the monorail bomb, the monorail acts as though it detonated and can not be used to access The Strip. Upon returning to Hsu, there are no further dialogue options available. The only fix for this problem is to reload an earlier save.
 * After you start the quest make sure to get the key to the control room from Boyd before starting the interrogation, interrogating Silus and killing him will make Boyd impossible to talk or pick-pocketable. Making this quest impossible because she gives you the key to the control room.
 * If you kill Crenshaw before the proper stage in the quest you will be sent to do so at the proper stage, but will be greeted by his cadaver (or pieces of it) standing/ floating in the spot where he died, but he will still be dead. This effectively freezes the quest, and forces you to revert to an earlier save to finish it.
 * If you are helping the Legion, sometimes after you plant the bomb on the monorail, the monorail will not leave the station rendering the quest useless; reloading will not help. Please see the "Fixes" section for a solution to this issue.
 * When you disarm the bomb on the monorail, you will not have the dialogue option with colonel Hsu to finish the quest.
 * When you're working for the Legion and you go to the tram it displays: "Take Monorail to The Strip", which makes it impossible to enter the monorail.
 * If you go into McCarran around 11pm you can see Curtis walking from his office towards the exit, you can then follow him outside, but as soon as you are outside he notices and tells you "I hope you catch him" or something similar and walk back into the base, however if you follow him back in and enter conversation then back out again he will walk back to the doors. If you wait 10 minutes before following him out of the door he should have walked far enough for him not to detect you and you can safely follow him.
 * Sometimes when walking into the tower you will not be able to eavesdrop until you have sneaked towards the top of the stairs, without him seeing you. You will then here a voice saying, "You're too close, shamus" [no capital on Shamus] and immediately the [CAUTION] sign will appear and Curtis will begin looking for you. If you avoid his detection, with a Stealth Boy, he will say that he has better stuff to do anyway. However he stays there and when spoken to will become hostile if you imply he is the spy. This means you find no evidence of the bomb planted on the monorail and you will not be able to stop it going off. If you talk to Colonel Hsu and he tells you to disarm the bomb you may be able to disarm it but then a few seconds later the monorail still leaves and explodes, despite the Quest line having told you otherwise.
 * In some cases a bug will occur where Curtis will walk in and out of the terminal constantly, this can occur due to many other bugs and will also cause the player to be unable to complete the quest even if the player tells Curtis about the spy.
 * Curtis may simply stand outside the control tower, never moving except to confront the player about what they are doing. Afterwards he will remain where he is, not moving back to the terminal building. There is still a way of completing the Legion's side of the mission by injuring Curtis and having him follow you back to the main building. Go inside and wait for a couple of hours. (Note: you cannot wait with hostiles in the area so you must start the waiting period before Curtis enters the building.) After the waiting period, Curtis will be in the building with you with the dialogue to initiate the Legion side of the quest.
 * You may run into a glitch with Corporal Sterling after completing this quest. To him the quest never finishes and he will still mention noticing the light in the tower even if he's at Camp Forlorn Hope.
 * There is a repeatable bug that allows one to receive 100 caps if they work for the Legion on this quest. After killing Private Crenshaw they must report to Colonel Hsu that Private Crenshaw blew up the monorail and tell Hsu that Crenshaw had explosives and plans or that he confessed to it before he died.
 * When you leave the monorail after disarming the bomb it will depart and still explode.

Fixes

 * If you've killed the spy and already spoken to Hsu about it, but don't want the monorail to blow up, you can follow the steps here to create a mini-mod which would allow you to stop the explosion and complete the quest (not working to everyone, although following these instructions, it may work).
 * If you don't want the monorail to blow up on the Xbox 360 version, avoid the event trigger. This trick works by jumping up onto the guard rail right next to the train and following it into the train car. PATCHED.
 * If you have killed the spy without eavesdropping on him, and after you defuse the bomb on the monorail, but you are not given the dialogue option to complete the quest. If you reload a previous save before you defuse the monorail bomb and let the monorail blow up, you get the dialogue option to complete the quest.
 * One possible solution to multiple issues is to use the following console commands:

Then talk to Hsu, then type:

This will likely complete the quest and leave the monorail intact.
 * If you have negative reputation with the NCR you will be attacked on sight. This can be avoided if you wear NCR armor and use a stealth boy at the same time, you will then be able to talk to Hsu without him being hostile. ( Warnings: This might not work for everyone but it worked for me when I played the game on pc also some NCR npcs in the facility may still be hostile but Hsu usually isn't. )
 * If you are helping the Legion, and the monorail will not leave after you plant the bomb on it, travel to New Vegas and ride the monorail back to Camp McCarran from there; when you arrive it will immediately depart and then explode. (Worked for me, need conformation that this works for others)(unconfirmed) didn't work for me it still sits there regardless. I restarted my Xbox and reloaded my save right before I planted the bomb. and when I did it, it worked just fine.(unconfirmed) Restarting the Xbox works. The train wouldn't take off for me, so I restarted my Xbox, loaded it where I'm about to plant the bomb and the monorail took off and exploded. (Unconfirmed- monorail just sits there for me.- worked for me.) If you lost your auto-save, all I did was go back into McCarran and shut off my Xbox and loaded up my auto-save in McCarran and went back outside and it left.
 * Installing the game to your hard-drive on the Xbox 360 version should prevent a majority of the bugs in this game. It is suggested if you have enough memory on your hard-drive.

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