This story will be a mixture of shorts about life in the United Commonwealth presented by Scribe Ellison, a slightly prissy Brotherhood scribe who writes in present tense, and Sole Survivor Em's memories of her adventures, aka the same novelization everyone else is doing. So why am I doing one if everyone else is? Because novelizations are fun. It's been years since I did one and I forgot how blissfully easy they are, especially when my main story is moving like snails in January. (yes it is still moving. Just… backwards, sometimes.)

This story does not have a plan; I expect I'll post bits every so often until I get bored with it.

The End of the Story First

Recording by Scribe Ellison

To Overseer Almodovar and Mayor Simms, Elder Robinson, from Scribe Ellison, Order of the Quill:

The caravan and I arrived safely in the settlement of Sanctuary and I met the leader of the United Commonwealth. I will be sending concise reports by courier, but this record will be a detailed description of the state of life in the Commonwealth. I believe you recruited me from the Arlington Library for my writing skill so I will describe everything fully. There has been a lot to see.

To begin: You requested also a description of the leader of Commonwealth civilization, who is mostly called General or Em but offered her full name as Emily Rhonda Mason. She looks like a hundred other women of the wasteland. The same wiry build, from hard work and scant food. Her black hair is pinned back in a bun and she wears black-rimmed glasses and a much-patched vault suit with mismatched bits of armor over it. Her voice is low and throaty and suits her dry humor. She reminds me more than a bit of your friend in Megaton, Overseer.

This, more or less, was our first conversation:

"You're the General of the Minutemen."

"Yes, but it's mostly ceremonial. Preston really runs things."

"And a Railroad agent?"

"Mmhm."

"Member of the Brotherhood?"

"Not since they found out about the Railroad agent part, but I may be reinstated if we can keep the peace."

"Anything else? Are you Director of the Institute too?"

She laughs. "Mother of two to four. De facto leader of… all this."

'All this' is really quite a lot. Sanctuary is smaller than Megaton, but not by very much. The population is around thirty people, though some of them travel between the settlements of the Commonwealth as needed. And there are twenty-four similar civilian settlements around the Commonwealth plus two disputed settlements and the "Castle" which is mainly a Minutemen training ground and barracks. Several other locations are being scouted for future settlements. The United Commonwealth may be a bit shaky, but it is growing.

Sanctuary has eight pre-war houses still standing and five more buildings recently built on empty foundations. The labor must have been terrific. The settlement is built on an island surrounded by an irradiated river. Four industrial water purifiers parked upstream render the water less toxic, but still not safe for drinking straight from the river. (This must be a failed experiment in cleaning the river.) As we walked through the settlement two teenagers ran past us and my hostess reminded them to stay out of the river.

Yes, there are children here. Five of them: teenagers Jimmy and Kayna, toddler Maya, and my hostess' two children, Shaun and Shiloh. She mentioned casually that the provisioners' children live in Diamond City for school. But I digress; the childrens' stories should have their own section. I will return to describing Sanctuary as I first saw it.

Water is provided to the settlement by another large purifier, and there are also three pumps sunk to groundwater in case the purifier should be damaged. Food is grown on every square foot of soil clean enough to support it. Stands of corn and razorgrain provide flour for bread—gritty, sour bread, but edible topped with butter and jam. Carrots, tomatoes and melons provide vitamins and a little variety in the diet. The six brahmin cows give milk for cheese and their male calves are slaughtered. Most of the meat is from monsters—or 'wild game' as it's called. Mole rats, radroach, and mirelurk mostly, but yao guai end up on the table as well. I'm told they've even eaten deathclaw, and that it makes a decent jerky if smoked.

The staple crop of Sanctuary, though, is mutfruit. Fresh, dried, juiced, as jam, or fermented into alcohol. Mutfruit for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I will say it's more palatable than the endless cans of pork 'n' beans that are our lot in Megaton. We have been offered seeds and sprouts of all the local crops in trade for the same from the Capitol, and I had to confess we're mostly living on prewar cans since the soil around Megaton is sterile and nothing will grow. Please contact the Treeminders and remind them of their promise to trade seeds.

In addition to the brahmin there are half a dozen guard dogs in Sanctuary, and at least as many cats that keep mice out of the grain. Em asked eagerly if I'd heard any rumors of chickens but I had to disappoint her. She said she'd spoken with a trader who swore he'd seen live chickens in a settlement to the east. An expedition to look for these chickens is being planned.

Sanctuary mounts expeditions frequently, for the purpose of mapping and clearing monsters from different parts of the Commonwealth. Boston proper is held by super mutants, a group too large and entrenched to drive out, but other areas are only infested with feral ghouls or mole rats and can be made safer with regular patrols. The community's maps, which exist on paper as well as drawn on a wall, are quite impressive. Settlements, surviving prewar buildings, and monster lairs are marked. Nothing we don't have in Megaton or at the memorial but it's impressive for a group of civilians who only recently acquired occasional access to flight. (Thus far in my visit, rumors that my hostess is going on vertibird rides with Paladin Danse seem unfounded.)

Other walls in the settlement are covered in art. Charcoal is the only medium available and that washes off every time it rains, but some of the people of Sanctuary take time in the evenings after work is done to draw on the walls. At the moment the biggest picture is of a deathclaw guarding its egg, and there are smaller works depicting people and dogs fighting wasteland monsters.

My impression is of a healthy growing settlement that will have much to trade with us in the capital. In future messages I will describe things I find here and events I witness here in the Commonwealth.