

Walking with Spirits

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Walking with Spirits
Walking with Spirits.jpg
Walking with Spirits.png
Quest data
LocationArk & Dove Cathedral
Sacred Bog
Given ByDesmond
Reward300 XP
Punga Power! perk
AchievementWalking with Spirits
Xbox Live gamerscoreIcon gamerscore.png20PlayStation 3 trophyIcon ps3trophy.pngSilver
Editor ID?
Base IDxx005847
Related quests
The Local Flavor
leads to:
Hearing Voices
Thought Control
A Meeting of the Minds
Gametitle-FO3 PL.png
Gametitle-FO3 PL.png

Truly, the Mother Punga has bestowed her wisdom upon you, and your mind has been expanded!


Walking with Spirits is a quest and achievement and trophy in the Fallout 3 add-on Point Lookout.

Quick walkthrough

  1. Talk to Desmond after the tribal assault on Calvert Mansion.
  2. Head north to the Ark & Dove Cathedral.
  3. Journey to the Sacred Bog.
  4. Take the Mother Punga's seeds.
  5. Get out of the Sacred Bog... if you can.
  6. Return to the Ark & Dove Cathedral.

Detailed walkthrough

After assisting Desmond in defending the Calvert Mansion from tribals, Desmond asks the Lone Wanderer to infiltrate the Ark & Dove Cathedral to the north (the tribal's base of operations) to discover the reasoning behind their attacks. Although the cathedral gates are locked and seemingly abandoned, a guard sees the Lone Wanderer from a distance and speaks to them via an intercom. Being snide to him will break his concentration and make him drop his shamanistic attitude long enough to scold you. Although he says that the tribals don't "just take any recruit," he sends you on your way to the rite of initiation without so much as seeing your face. The player is then charged with venturing out west into the Sacred Bog entrance and taking part in the Ritual of the Mother Seed.

Once inside the bog, you will fight through several mirelurks. Upon making it to the final grove, the Mother punga, and its purple seeds, will be ready for the taking. However, it is recommended that you take the punga fruit before activating the Mother punga. Once the Mother punga is activated, you will not be able to pick anything up until the punga effects wear off. When you take the seeds of the plant a gas sprays out from the fruit and the Lone Wanderer falls over.

When you awake, you experience a psychedelic hallucination. You will find giant bobbleheads, called Schmault-Tec Bubbleheads (fake versions of Vault-Tec Bobbleheads) with cryptic messages written on them, ranging from expressing the Lone Wanderers inner doubts and fears to making fun of their misfortunes. The first hallucination you will see is a large red translucent saw which is randomly sawing the ground, then exploding Nuka-Cola Quantums that make baby sounds when they explode. Also, when you pass this part, there will be dolls on poles that appear to be waving to you. You can also see silver needles sewing or putting stitches in the ground, as if you were getting stitches. You can also hear a violin playing, the apparent result of several nearby trees shaping into the instrument. You will be attacked by ghost ghouls (that won't hurt you), journey through an upside-down swamp, and even find the skeleton of your dead mother upon an operating table surrounded by party balloons, displaying the cruel point that it was your birth that caused her death. You will find several dead bodies of people from the Capital Wasteland that disintegrate when searched, including Lucas Simms (floating inside of the rocks between and to the left of Amata and the settler), Moira Brown, Amata, Elder Lyons, and an unnamed settler, possibly the Megaton settler who gives you items for having good karma. When interacted with they disappear, they can however, be picked up and moved around. Finally you find a larger version of the Megaton bomb with a character similar to Mister Burke named Mister Break standing in front of it. In Tobar's voice he warns you to not to move or he would be hurt as if the surgery was finished even though the subtitles say "Congratulations, boy, you are going to pull through and be alright", then the bomb explodes and you awaken in front of the Sacred Bog. In the background behind the bomb, the Washington Monument can be seen.

When you return to the Ark & Dove Cathedral, you are permitted entry. If you enter third-person, you will notice that any headwear you had equipped is presently gone, your head is shaven and you have a large scar on your head. You will be unable to equip the headwear you were wearing until you have the scar removed by Nadine. Apparently, she has joined the tribals to procure their punga, in failing to achieve her original goal of discovering treasure in Point Lookout.

Quest stages

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Understanding the Visions

During the Tailing the Tomboy quest, it is revealed that Tobar follows the Lone Wanderer into the Sacred Bog. He then takes the unconscious Lone Wanderer and removes a piece of their brain (he allegedly has done this to many of the tribals as well). After undergoing the procedure administered by Tobar, the Point Lookout Tribe accepts you as one of them. Before awakening at the Sacred Bog Entrance, you will experience a hallucination, which can be interpreted as follows:

  • The saw cutting could represent Tobar opening your skull.
  • The needle that "sews" its way along the side of the path in front of you is when Tobar is sewing the wound shut.
  • The part where Mr. Break talks to you is actually Tobar talking to you when you're unconscious.
  • Some things seen during the hallucination have a "real world" counterpart: (in the order the real things are seen) the bomb is a giant rock, the Washington Monument is a large rock formation seen in the background before the hallucination, the Wanderer's mother on a gurney is also a rock, the Perception Bubblehead is a doll hanging from the trees, the Agility Bubblehead is a rock, the exploding bottles are dolls hanging from the trees along the path, the violins are winding trees, the Strength Bubblehead is a small rock, and the Intelligence Bubblehead is also another rock.


There are seven "Schmault-Tec Bubbleheads" found during the hallucination, each representing a SPECIAL attribute. The Bubbleheads are larger than standard Bobbleheads and do not behave like the latter by adding points. Instead, they taunt you in a way that reflects the related statistic of the Bubblehead.

Below is the message each Bubblehead contains in the order they can be found:

  • Intelligence: "Tsk. Tsk. Walked right into another trap. Exactly how stupid are you?" (Found right when you leave the area with the Mother Punga)
  • Strength: "This is one situation you're not going to be able to fight your way out of." (Found on a small dot of land on your way back)
  • Endurance: "Keep it up, you're almost there... wherever 'there' may be... probably nowhere."
  • Agility: "Isn't it funny how everything you get close to ends up leaving?" (Found around where exploding Nuka-Cola Quantums start appearing)
  • Perception: "This doesn't look right, not right at all." (Found upside-down where the world is upside-down)
  • Charisma: "Blech. If my kid looked like that, I'd abandon it too." (Found in-between the legs of the skeleton labeled 'Mom' laying on a hospital bed, to represent your birth)
  • Luck: "Dead mother, life in a post-nuclear Wasteland and not a friend in it. Yeah, you aren’t exactly blessed." (Found near Mr. Break and the Atomic Bomb)


  • If the PC takes the Charisma Bubblehead, 'Mom's' lifeline will stop and turn into a flatline.
  • When you get to the part with the dolls, all of them will raise their arms and point to the correct path as you approach.
  • Wearing the ghoul mask will keep the ghouls in the hallucination from attacking you.
  • If you kill the ghouls before they disappear, their corpses will stay there and you will be able to loot them.
  • If you have the Cannibal perk, it is possible to feed on the corpses of Amata, Elder Lyons, Moira, and the unnamed Megaton settler during the hallucination sequence.
  • Taking the punga seeds as part of the quest has the side effect of reducing your radiation level to 0.
  • You can shoot Mr. Break to unconsciousness and pickpocket his ammunition, with karma loss, when he gets up to walk back to his position.
  • Be careful, exploding Nuka-Cola Quantum can hurt.
  • Any items collected during your hallucinations will remain in your inventory even after the hallucination ends and you wake up. Likewise, all rads accumulated will remain.