Swamped

Well, if your new acquaintance is interested in old legends, then it might be useful to shift the conversation to the most obvious legendary phenomenon.

"Has time magic come up in your research?" you ask. "Because it seems to suggest an explanation for what's happening to this fellow."

"I have a few books on it, but only one of them wasn't in a grebling language," they grumble. "For some reason, most of the stories told about it come from the greblings. And with no translation aids, I can't get anywhere with those. I tried asking some grebling contacts, but the ones who live in human cities have had to pretty much give up their languages entirely, and the colonies don't like talking to them."

"So did you learn anything from the one exception?" you ask.

"Not much. There was a story about a wizard who traveled to the past. It was a little hard to follow, but what I was able to grasp was that he could only use time ether until he returned to his home time. Then it got confusing... something about the magic running wild, but it was hard to translate."

Well. That's highly relevant to your situation, to the point where you actually find yourself suspicious for a moment. But then you realize that if a wizard discovered the means to use time magic, going back in time would be a likely first experiment. It would make sense if the old mages who had the power wrote a cautionary tale about the dangers of it.

Which suggests you're stuck in one. How comforting.

On the other hand, maybe you can learn something about how to get out of it. But you don't want to give up too much away about your situation - Nual warned you about that, after all. So you should pick your questions carefully.