Free Labor



Free Labor is a Fallout 3 quest and achievement that is added to the game in The Pitt add-on.

Retrieve your gear
As soon as you complete the three rounds in the Hole, Krenshaw arrives to tell you that you are free and that Ashur wishes to talk to you in Uptown. Then you are able to retrieve your equipment taken by the Pitt raiders from the footlocker in the middle of the room and head to Ashur. Be careful not to attack any Pitt raiders in Downtown before speaking to Ashur, or else the raiders in Uptown will also start attacking you, if you make them hostile by accident, you need to wait for a few in game days to get them friendly again.

Speak to Ashur in Haven
Once there, Ashur asks you to kill Wernher because he's been rallying the slaves and a riot would result in meaningless death. If you pass a Speech challenge you can tell Ashur that you never met Wernher, or that you didn't like his looks. He will tell you about the cure and even ask you to speak with his wife to know more. Simply speaking honestly will also yield this result. After that you must decide to either join him or refuse his offer. Here you can either decide to kill Wernher, kill Ashur or wait until he is called away and investigate Haven for the cure.

Take care of Wernher
If you choose to leave the "cure" or kill Wernher (both have no effect on Karma if done correctly), slaves will be rioting all through The Pitt. Killing them may cause Karma loss, but they are easily avoided as most are equipped with auto axes or steel saws.

Wernher may be located by talking to Midea, killing her and taking a note from her corpse, or reading any number of the notes located in her quarters (the Child at Heart perk gets her to admit the kidnapping was Wernher's idea and that she didn't think about what freedom would take). He is found in his hideout, accessed through a door in the steelyard which was previously inaccessible. You can either ask Wernher to leave forever by passing a Speech check or using the Black Widow perk, or kill him for no Karma loss if Wernher shoots first. If a Speech check or Black Widow perk is used to persuade Wernher to leave, the key to The Pitt underground will be on the table with various scientific instruments. Because you have sided with Ashur, the floodlight control computer in the underground will be gone and will lead to a dead end, as this is also what opens the door that leads to the Haven courtyard.

Aftermath
After completion you: gain access to the ammo press; are given a quest to collect and return teddy bears to Sandra; are given access to continue collecting steel ingots for Everett; are given the perk Booster Shot, which increases rad resistance by 10%; and will still be able to use the merchants.

Bring the cure to Wernher
To side with Wernher, you need to either kill Ashur directly or wait until he is called away and steal the cure. Either way, you will be attacked by Ashur's wife and the raiders. Note that if you kill her in Haven you will gain some negative Karma. After making your way out of Haven, you will then find a fight between slaves and raiders. Make your way back to Midea's quarters, where she will ask you to show her the cure, revealing she knew it was a baby all along. She will give you a note telling you that Wernher has everything arranged and is waiting for you in his hideout inside the steelyard. After you talk with him and hand over Marie, he will tell you that you must find the "floodlight control" and shut down the floodlights which are preventing the trogs from attacking Uptown.

Shut off Uptown's floodlights
After you are done talking to Wernher, he will give you a Stealth Boy. If you have the Black Widow perk it is possible to get a few stimpaks or ammunition from him as well. Leave Wernher's hideout and go to the underground entrance located at the opposite side of the tracks from the supply plant. Enter via a manhole at the very end of the train tracks, similar to the one in Paradise Falls (if you took the secret way when rescuing the children). Once inside there are around two dozen trogs to fight, along with a protectron which can be activated to help.

Make your way to a terminal where you can shut off the floodlights. When you finish, exit through the door leading to Haven's courtyard.

Deal with Ashur
Here you will be confronted by Lord Ashur and Sandra (if they survived their initial encounters with the player), who will quickly become hostile and attack you. You can kill Ashur and loot his body (he drops his unique power armor as well as the key to The Pitt Underground) or leave him to his fate: if you avoid fighting Ashur, a horde of trogs will swarm the Haven courtyard and engage Ashur and any of his surviving Pitt raiders in combat.

Siding First with Wernher then with Ashur
You can steal the baby without harming Sandra, kill the raiders, talk to Wernher and just refuse to go along with the second part of his plan and decide to return the baby to Ashur. You must pass a speech (or Black Widow) check or you will have to kill Wernher. Ashur is upset, but ultimately accepts what happened. You have an option to ask him to free the slaves but there is no way to get him to agree. Sandra, however, will not forgive you for kidnapping her daughter but will still accept and pay you for toys while always having some snarky comments for your character.

Aftermath
If you decide to kill Ashur and return to Midea's house, you will find Wernher outside. He tells you that he will be reorganizing the city and that you should spread the word out of The Pitt in order to get more workers down in the Mill. He also tells you that you earned your share of the ammo press, and that if you want you can gather steel ingots and give them to the foreman in exchange for gear (a continuation of the Mill Worker quest). You are also given the perk Booster Shot, which increases rad resistance by 10%.

By talking to Midea you are given a quest to collect and return teddy bears to her. Haven, however, will be locked so any loot left inside will be inaccessible. The raider vendors will also be dead, killed by the ex-slaves. You can find their keys on their bodies to loot their store inventories, but will probably have to make many trips to and from The Pitt to sell all the loot.

Since Ashur is dead, Wernher may make you the new leader of The Pitt. If he does, he will begin to call you boss. On selecting certain dialogue options with Wernher, he may not make you the new boss, his dialogue implying instead that he is the new boss of The Pitt. To ensure Wernher makes you the new leader, select the dialogue option "That leaves me as the new Lord of The Pitt." Whether or not you do end up as Lord of The Pitt, you will quickly learn from Midea that she doesn't "know how Ashur kept these people from tearing one another apart," hinting that Wernher's idea of freedom may have been no better than leaving them under the organized iron-fist of Ashur in the first place.

Rewards

 * 150 XP
 * Ashur's power armor
 * Booster Shot
 * Access to the ammo press

Bugs

 * If you enter Haven proper, triggering the dialogue between Krenshaw and Ashur (during which you cannot interact with either), and return to the Entry Hall before talking to Ashur, he cannot be talked to or pickpocketed when you return and Krenshaw will never leave. Ashur will instead continue looking at Krenshaw as though the (now finished) dialogue is going on, with his legs twitching. This means you cannot take the baby or hack the turret control computer. After attacking Ashur or Sandra you can kidnap the baby and the plot continues normally with the slaves' revolt. Also, if you choose to side with Ashur and leave the dialogue after he tells you to kill Wernher, he will not interact with you anymore except to say "Find Wernher and put a stop to this" and "don't let me keep you". Sandra will also not talk to you. You can not steal the baby now unless you kill Ashur and Sandra. If you leave Haven to go to Uptown the door is locked and says that it requires a key. You may not be able to leave unless you kidnap the baby. If you run into this bug try the following in the console: and . This will reset the quest.
 * Ashur may also fail to leave Haven when contacted on the intercom if either of the following happens:
 * If, after Krenshaw leaves, you approach Ashur and initiate the conversation before he has a chance to initiate. If you are standing close enough to Ashur, he will approach you and initiate dialogue several seconds after Krenshaw leaves.
 * If you wait too long to allow Ashur to initiate conversation, Krenshaw will return. Ashur may or may not initiate dialogue at this point, and Krenshaw may disappear.
 * Upon leaving Midea's house after discovering Wernher's location, if the quest 'Picking Up the Trail' is still active, it may automatically complete itself, and move on to the next quest in the base game's storyline.
 * Wernher may also randomly become hostile if you exit the Mill to return to the market to complete the quest. If you fight him he simply goes unconscious, then regains full health and attacks you again. Instead run past him into Midea's quarters (sometimes he'll follow you in though), wait and then go out again - by that time he should have killed all The Pitt bosses in the market and calmed down.
 * After leaving Haven, during the raiders vs Slaves events bodies of fallen non-player characters will randomly disappear.
 * During the slave revolt, hostile slaves equipped with auto axes may become invisible when attacking raiders or the player, similar to the disappearing auto-axe glitch. When targeted in V.A.T.S. the camera zooms in very close to them, however they may still be attacked in V.A.T.S. Bodies remain invisible until searched.
 * Killing hostile slaves may invariably cause Karma loss even though they are enemies at the time. Mostly occurs in The Mill when slave skins glitch and become invisible.
 * If you have not previously killed Ashur after leaving the underground area, he will be waiting for you outside. After he attacks you, sometimes the game will lock up requiring you to restart the console.
 * If, before going to Haven and talking to Ashur, you fast travel to the Train Yard, Wernher will be at the gate that leads to the bridge and his dialog will be as if you sided with Ashur. He will then go hostile (unless you have the Black Widow perk), and attack you. If you kill him, the quest will tell you to return to Ashur.
 * After leaving Haven, the entire Uptown area may be affected by a graphical glitch making it very hard to see anything unless the player faces east.
 * Not only Ashur, but Wernher and Midea also ignore the player in certain cases during the last part of the main quest-line. The biggest issue appears to be if the player refuses to take the baby after speaking with Ashur. In this case the quest is only able to be completed by either murdering Wernher (no option to engage in dialogue), or take the baby and fight the raiders and Ashur's wife Sandra.
 * If you finish Free Labor, sometimes all your items taken by Mex will disappear and you will not get them back.
 * Sometimes, after the completion of "Free Labor" (by siding with Ashur), hostile Pitt Slaves will still appear. If they are harmed by the player OR the raider non-player characters, all other slaves become hostile as well.
 * Sometimes when you leave The Pitt, Wernher will randomly appear and attack you. If you choose to kill him he does not respawn. This only happens after all main quests are finished.
 * After turning off the floodlights, if you exit back the way you came instead of going out into the part of the Underground near Haven, the lights will not turn off and the trogs won't come. Wernher and Midea will act as though Ashur and the bosses are dead, and the slave riot will have happened, but if you go back Uptown Ashur and all the other raiders are still alive.
 * Killing Sandra after leaving and then returning to Haven (giving you no chance to take the baby) will result in the Game believing you are now sided with the slaves, but at the same time sided with Ashur. This will make Wernher and Ashur Invincible (only able to render them unconscious). This results in an endless loop where you are unable to talk to Ashur and Wernher and kill neither of them. The only way to resolve this is to revert to a save that was before the beginning of this quest.
 * If you go back to the other side of the bridge prior to entering Haven, Werhner will react as if you have sided with Ashur, which may result in the player killing him. Entering Haven at that point will still allow the plot to continue as normal and the player can side with Werhner. After shutting off the floodlights and returning to Market Square, Werhner will be there and will be alive but still in the same condition he was in when killed (for example, he may be pacing around smoking a cigarette but with his head at his feet, missing an arm, etc.). Talking to him will still complete the quest but he may not speak, causing the dialogue to go by too fast to read. Also note that if you looted his corpse he will not be wearing any armor, which means he will wear even weak clothing that you reverse pickpocket onto him.
 * If you do not retrieve your equipment before speaking with Ashur, the door leading out of Haven will be locked and require a key.

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