All ok?
You honor me.
What would you think about this: Let's say that the current players have a week to check in. I know that's a short amount of time, but either people will be on RPOL and see the indicator and the rmail I'll send or they won't.*
Once that week passes, we recruit new players and assign them to any characters that are still without a player. That gives us the ability to play in the dungeon without having to do some weird handwaving that puts us back in the fort mid-room.
*I would not give Veskard out to another player because of the circumstances under which he slowed his posting. If necessary I'd NPC him.