Mr Smashcan Explores something

There were five of us - mr Mesmer, miss Lightfoot, miss Begonia, mr Sputnik, and myself. To say nothing of the Cthulhu. We were in mr Sputnik's Cabinet - a device that appears on the outside as a rather smallish Police Call Box of the type that will fit one or maybe two people in relative comfort (and twelve to fifteen in extreme discomfort), but on the inside has room for quite a large party (and having a very well-stocked bar, it may indeed be a party in every meaning of the word).

It is the nature of the Cabinet to disregard the laws of space and time, which is quite convenient. As long as one avoids causing paradoxes by changing the past, of course - for some reason it seems to be quite common to attempt to shoot one's grandfather, and that causes all sorts of situations. One never knows who'll be able to turn up to the funeral, for instance.

Mr Sputnik received a distress call from a Frogstar ship, whatever that is - and we soon arrived in The Wastelands. An aptly named place, if ever there was one. We alighted in a bunker where a sign advised - well, ordered - us to put away all weapons, and I reluctantly hid away my gun. It does not do to upset the natives.

Well outside, we were treated to a bleak, depressing world. Even the most mis-managed colony should never look like it. We quickly encountered some of the natives, who though they seemed to consider cannibalism quickly turned out to be both talkative and relatively friendly. (There was a mr Spoonhammer there who must have been a descendant of a gentleman I've met in Caledon).

We left the natives to continue their discussion of horseless carriages or whatever it was, though supplied them with some books for moral support. They had warned us about the lack of water, and indeed, not a drop to drink anyway. The ground was a sandy desert with strips of tarmacadam -presumably old roads - and ruins. There were copious sink-holes, down some of which there were pipes spewing a hideous green ichor. All under a remorselessly burning sun. So much for my ancestors' legends of Ragnarok, in which Fenris Wolf eats the sun!

In our quest for the distressed ship, we further encountered an empty, desolate pub with a mechanical bartender and not an ale on tap, and an unspeaking trader with some kind of music box. One of the natives, a mr Jimador, I believe, joined us and explained where there could be found a starship. We promptly followed him and within a short time encountered a large crater, down which we found a rather ominous looking "Nuke", and a sort of coffin labeled "Forbidden knowledge". Subtlety is not the way of the future.

Reaching the conclusion that there was nothing to be done for whomever had sent out the distress signal, we made our way back to the place we had arrived. A sort of command post held various maps, the labels on which suggested that the Russian Empire had at some point in this timeline fallen to Marxism. Thanking mr Jimador, we left that distressing place by Cabinet.

It is clear to me that we must do whatever is in our power to avert this future. Cannibalism, desert sun, empty pubs, the horror!