Begin Recording
Revelation
Recording by Scribe Ellison
Another day. I've been drafted into helping the children with their waterwheel, which has reached the point of digging a post hole by the stream behind sanctuary. As far as I can tell there is no planned purpose for the waterwheel; Shaun just wants to see 'whether or not I can' and the rest of the kids are helping out just for something to do even though it's more manual labor.
We've just wrangled a large rock, out of the hole when the siren rings the all clear to announce visitors. It's a trader from the Capital Wasteland and with him a young woman in the robe and cowl of the Children of Atom but with a new symbol on her robe: the atom symbol with a sprout growing from the center dot.
This was Mother Aniis, a missionary on her way to Diamond City to seek converts. She's come here to pick up Adam and Jill who are going to Diamond City, Jill to live with family and Adam to stay with the missionary while they attend school.
I ask the missionary for her story and she's happy to oblige.
"Atom came to me in a vision. He gave me a new path for his followers, one that celebrates the life born from his great division. We have been purified and no longer need to scourge ourselves with the crude physical; we hold the glow within! Henceforth we will dedicate ourselves to using Atom's gifts to bring life to this world that he has blessed with his coming."
Adam is rapt and follows the missionary around.
Jill has family in Diamond City, newly tracked down by Nick Valentine, who want her to move in with them. I've heard a bit of Jill's history over the past month and it's a lonely one. Her family traveled the wasteland, losing members one by one until Jill's mother joined a cult and died of the glows leaving her child alone. At least the two have places to go.
The General asked Jill and Adam where they wanted to live. They could have stayed, though none of the settlers in Sanctuary has stepped forward to adopt them like the Longs did baby Boomer. The children could also have gone to Spectacle Island, the safest of the settlements where unattached children often end up. The way I hear it they run in wild herds across the island. All right, I've also heard that the island is more like a nursery school. Unattached children also sometimes end up at the school in Diamond City but there is a limit to how many orphans the city can support. Mayor McDonough was delighted when he realized the city could dump its orphans on the Minutemen settlements. Just like half of our apprentices at the Citadel are orphans from the Capital Wasteland.
The missionary has also brought gifts from the Treeminders, which bring everybody to look, and then everybody is disappointed that trees start out so small. Shiloh looks from the tiny saplings to the huge stump of a very dead tree that must once have cast shade over half of Sanctuary. "Mom said she wanted another tree to put there but I think she meant a big one."
Mother Aniis tells her, "These are orange maple trees. They won't grow that big, but their sap turns into syrup and they grow fruit that you can eat."
"Orange fruit like they had before the war?"
"Well not exactly. I sold a shipment in Underworld and the ghouls said these oranges are too small and don't taste right so they're… mut-oranges. But they grow in irradiated soil, which is a blessing from Atom."
