The months pass quickly. The war stalls, or is somehow avoided.

I manage to get out to the 'lost' city that my companions have found. We find as usual a bunch of mud huts amidst ruins of the Ancients. The city inhabitants engage us to try looting more of the ruins, and we manage an expedition where we escape with our lives.

It turns out the city is aligned to the one we originally entered, and where my troops still bivouac. There are other such 'cities', both aligned and enemy to this group. The river is key, the cities on the river are all together, the ones farther inland are not our friends.

We return to the port city where my troops are. Things have changed, and contact with Tsolyanu has been restored. A Governor from the Empire is here now, with a good sized bureaucracy. I am appointed a Dritlan and nominal head of the army.

Our army consists of my original troops, about a cohort or so, and a lot of Shen auxiliaries. I get to work, training more of the natives as skirmishers and trying to get along with Shen. The work is made easier considering that Sten the Shen is still considered as a 'King' here, and thus controls the native cities friendly to us. His working title among the bureaucracy is equivalent to a high ranking Palace of the Realm officer dealing with merchant and merchandising in the area (quartermaster general would be a good translation).

After a minor adventure in space and time... starting to seem that way now... poor Hlucha is definitely blase about this...
Arrival at Jakalla 5 years out of date. The Empire decides that rather than fool around more they'll simply post our heroes to other sides of the country and prevent movement from the 'old' heroes... now we understand why some of the earlier mysteries happened, the Empire was preventing a time loop?
Hlucha is made general of the Legion of the Crystalline Peak... and new things begin. [Prof Barker and I discussed this as a means to add fluff to the d20 Project above, expect a treatise on the real secrets of the Tlakotani in the rules once published]
The others? Salarvya of course, much to be done there!