:sadvaultboy: Greetings all,
I discovered a chamber in the tunnels under Hamilton's Hideaway, a shack NW of the Wheaton Armory and another shack at Dogmeat's scrap yard.
All require a key for access. :gun:
Any help with locating the keys would be greatly appreciated. :tops:

The shack in the scrapyard is part of the Contract Killer perk, you'll get the key and directions to the shack when you take the perk. I don't remember where Wheaton Armory is off hand but it's likely that shack is the one that goes with the Lawbringer perk. You get the Hamilton's Hideaway key from Three Dog for repairing the broadcast array but only if you've skipped ahead in the main quest and he can't trade information on your father for completing this task.

You can also get it by succeeding with a Speech check before that point. It's not an easy one to get though, I've only done it once.

I encountered some wastelander at the Junkyard today. He didn't have much to say, other than "I'm not looking for any trouble. Or conversation either." So I followed him around for a bit. But before I could pick his picket, a raider shot him dead. After I killed the raider, I searched the wastelander's body. There was a key, "John's key", as I recall. Is this key good for anything?

It said I also found a note on John's body. But when I looked in my inventory I couldn't find it. Is this a bug?

:fallout: I appreciate the info but I'm afraid that I'm not familiar with a speech check.
Could you please explain what a speech check is and how it is accessed?

Sometimes when you speak to an NPC, you'll get a special line of dialogue with "Speech" next to the text. If you select that line, the game then checks your Speechcraft skill and compares it to the value needed to succeed in the check. If you win then various things can happen, depending on the NPC. In the case of Three Dog, winning the Speech check will get you the keys to the stash at Hamilton's Hideaway. Other skills come up like this as well from time to time, but usually you'll only see the Speech option.

I could be wrong, but I believe John's Key is looted from a random encounter. The note would detail a stash hidden in the junkyard in the NW corner. It's an ammo box hidden in a burned out bus next to a red box car and it contains a good number of skill books. Well worth the effort of locating. I had this event in my game a few days ago and for some reason it has stuck in my memory.

Thanks. after I wrote this post, I looked it up in the Wiki, where this is explained.

But can someone confirm that the disappearing note is a bug?