In Megaton, Lucy West wants to deliver a letter to her family in Arefu, and asks you to deliver it for her. You can also start the quest if you reach Arefu and speak with Evan, or if you encouter The Family in their home and learn about the Arefu incident.
Introduction
At Megaton, you can find Lucy West in the saloon, who will want you to send a letter to Arefu.
When you arrive in Arefu, you find that the village was attacked when Evan becomes a little jumpy on the trigger finger. Evan states the recent attack was from a group known as The Family. On first glance, it appears that they were involved in the death of the West family. After reporting to Evan King, he gives three possible locations they may be - either the Moonbeam Outdoor Cinema, Hamelton's Hideaway, or Northwest Seneca Station.
A high medicine skill of at least 90 allows you to detect train yard residue. If you tell this to Evan, he will give the correct location of the family without needing to explore the other areas.
Locating the Family
The cinema is vacant, and the Hideaway is a home to raiders (and a locked door which cannot be picked). The Northwest Seneca Station doesn't contain a family, but a friendly ghoul (looking for sugar bombs) gives the exact location of the family: Meresti Trainyard.
The Meresti Trainyard has plenty of traps to keep out animals and hostiles. The traps are a combination of various devices, including a rigged shotgun, an exploding baby carriage, and a baseball machine. Once you are past the traps, the guard will stop you saying that the rest is reserved for members of The Famile. You can get past through a speech check, the cannibal perk, a bribe, or by saying that you're delivering a letter.
When you enter the family's common room, look for Vance, the leader of the group. You can find him in either the common area, or wandering on the second floor overlooking the common section. He will introduce you to the family and give you the password to the public terminal on the first floor; this will tell you the nature of the family and how they work - return to Vance to tell them about your opinion.
Ian West
To reach Ian West, you will need to convince one of the family members to give you the password. The various family members know the password, and can give it out through dialogue:
- Vance is convinced by a speech check or the cannibal perk.
- Holly is convinced by Charisma.
- Justin can be convinced by Charisma.
- Karl can be convinced with Black Widow perk or Strength.
- Brianna can be convinced with Lady Killer perk.
When you reach Ian West, you can give him the letter or try to convince him to remain with the family. After the discussion, return to Vance to let him know about Ian's decision. Either path has the same rewards, you will receive karma and gain a Shishkebab schematic.
You should also have an option to form a deal with Arfeu. A high speech check, Medical skill or Intelligence allows you to identify an alternate source of blood that doesn't require humans. From there, you can setup a bloodpack exchange program between Arfeu and the family, and having them become friendly instead of worrying about each other. After bringing the proposal to Evan King and returning to Vance, you can obtain the Hemotophage Perk, which boosts the amount of health given from bloodpacks, as well as sell bloodpacks for caps.