Is intervention by chronomancer an option? Maybe Russel will show up and rewind the clock to before we made the terrible decision to push through the barrier.
If time travel were a proven reliable thing, then we wouldn't have had to worry about the long trek across the unknown cursed land. But we can't take the chance that after spending 40 years of time at home that maybe Russel has the ability and interest to take us back to when would would have arrived if time were normal. We also don't know if those who suffer because we are not there on another plane would remember that torment, or if even time on other planes works the same, which we are confident it doesn't seeing as how it works different here. We may go back in time only to find out that our loved ones still aged or are gone anyway. So I put the odds of surviving the planar trip to random but still better than 50% chance of appearing on a plane we can get out of better than relying on survive a year and more of travel through a cursed land in hopes that we can leave via a portal and then need the help of a chronomancer of which there are few who may be able to take us to a time which may not even help us find our loved ones and accomplish our mission in the past. Add that the only chronomancer we know just couldn't help us and told us to find another way, while he was fighting a battle who knows when which he may not have survived.
So, try the plane shift call it 50/50 it works for each of us. Of all of the other things above which have to go right, I call that 1/100 at best.
And before you say it, if the powers block our plane shift escape because they are fickle and don't want to help us, then the amount of time we lost trying won't matter. First, because if we are gone for 40 years, what difference does another year make. Second, because if the time travel thing does work later, time spent won't matter at all. Third, we can find our way back across the barrier if this fails and try again.
