Alright, getting back to this now; What sort of context do you guys have in mind?
The opening and final part are both taking place in the Nexus (its actually written right before the encounter Finbar and three of ThirdEmperor's characters are in right now), though I figured it wouldn't matter if I stated it outright. Basically he's just going around the Nexus looking for interesting things. Finbar's definition of "interesting" might be a little weird, though (like finding an odd stalagmite formation might be more interesting than a massive, thirteen-tentacled eldritch abomination).
EDIT: I'm not sure how he got to the Nexus. Originally I envisioned Finbar much differently; he was the unwitting pawn of a faction in the Temporal Cold War, having been considered a perfect candidate due to his "oddness" to more or less function as a storage device for highly advanced aliens.