I Put a Spell on You

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I Put a Spell on You is a side quest in Fallout: New Vegas. Camp McCarran has been compromised and the agent is feeding information to Caesar's Legion about NCR troop movements.

Quick walkthrough (NCR)

• Travel to Camp McCarran and speak to James Hsu or complete The Finger of Suspicion.
• Speak to Captain Curtis and then to Carrie Boyd.
• Once you've got adequate information, head to entrance of the control tower.
• Between midnight and 2 a.m., the spy will wander over calmly (armed with a 9mm pistol).
• Remove the disarming codes from the spy.
• Head to James Hsu, and report the incident to him.
• Head upstairs, directly over Hsu's room, and run for the monorail.
• You must defuse the bomb. The quest will glitch and send the monorail to its death anyway even if you defused it. Follow the steps below to prevent this and complete the quest right.

• IMPORTANT UPDATE - If you failed to view this quest walkthrough as I did then you can do this as a work around to the glitch. Before heading to the tower to eavesdrop on Curtis, leave your companions right beside the monorail doors. Now go to the tower where Curtis will be. Once there, use a stealth boy, sneak up on Curtis, steal the deactivation code (it says activation code), leave before his conversation with the legion ends DO NOT KILL CURTIS. Now head to the monorail, disarm the bomb with the deactivation code, not your explosive/science skill. Once completed, talk to James Hsu and you should have completed the quest.

• Important Update(part 2)- If you missed out on the above step, you can alternately, just jump on the railing to the right by the monorail right when you walk in, then just walk into the monorail and defuse the bomb. Then just walk back across the railing, and report back to Hsu.

Detailed walkthrough (NCR)

(In order to complete this mission properly, and being able to also complete No, Not Much)

At some point, you will be asked to speak with Captain Ronald Curtis, who is located on the first floor of the Camp McCarran Terminal building to the west (right) of the escalators. He will then ask you to speak to Carrie Boyd and Contreras. 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.

At this point, DO NOT go talk to Curtis, If you do, the monorail is doomed no matter what you do. Go out to the control tower. The most direct route is to go out the back door between the escalators on the first floor. The entry to the control tower has a monitor beside it, but it is not needed. Move back by one of the planes and Wait until about 1:00 or 1:30 a.m. You may want to save the game prior to doing the Wait.

Sometime after 1:00 a.m., Curtis can be seen walking towards the tower. 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. 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 when you exit, Curtis will "forget" he tried to kill you moments earlier.

If Curtis doesn't see you, he will walk into the tower. Follow him inside, and stay hidden (use a Stealth Boy if your Sneaking ability are low and leave any companion outside) while you listen to him talking on the radio. The quest will update and tell you to disarm the monorail. Despite Curtis saying it will blow in minutes, there is actually no timer. If you have a high explosives skill or high science skill, you can choose to go directly to the monorail. Otherwise, you will have to pickpocket/retrieve an Activation Code item off of Curtis.

Go back in the first floor door of the Camp McCarran Terminal Building, up the east escalator, and down the hall to the east to the door to the monorail. Walk inside the monorail, and turn left. The bomb will be inside an air vent. Disarm the explosives using Science (>45), Explosives (>35) (magazines and/or Mentats are handy here) or the codes you "borrowed" from the spy's pockets. You may end up being transported to The Strip by the monorail - if that's the case just hop on and head back to McCarran.

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. (Note: You can get the equipment anyways, for Col. Hsu tells you he wants to arrest Curtis, if that one even lets himself getting arrested, which obviously isn't the case. You can loot his body in the tower after speaking to Hsu, all you'll miss is the extra-experience.) Then return to Colonel Hsu: he'll reward you with some caps and a reputation boost. All done!

You can also complete the quest and gain the Experience Points with killing Curtis in the tower before hearing the radio conversation. This way, 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 exploded, you can report it back to Hsu, and then the quest ends, with you gaining nothing but the XP. This is a good solution if you run into the same problem as I did: there was no radio conversation, and the quest did not update itself, even after waiting hours at the bottom of the stairs. (Walking back outside and entering the control tower again should fix this.)

• Just in case you fail to wait until Curtis talks about the bomb, it's ok, you can still save the Monorail. Go ahead and go to Hsu and tell him you took out Curtis. He will tell you to go disarm the bomb. Hurry to the Monorail and AS SOON as you get out the door bring up your Pip Boy and use the Chem Turbo under "Aid" if you have it. This will give you the boost you need to get on the train and defuse the bomb. This only works if you have turbo, and it may take a couple of tries, but it saved me after I was a bit too hasty.

• Alternatively, if you use the response "Hsu wont trust me enough to let me investigate." you can help The Legion to blow up the monorail. Fairly simple, follow the markers. (Needs to be Confirmed)