Personally and for the sake of clarity, I would structure your sentence as shown below.
"Stick to your guns, Lola," he replied, happily, while pinching both of my cheeks.
This is a compound (and complex) sentence with two main, independent clauses
Furious, John strove to catch Jim by the shirt
Jim was too quick.
Two main, independent clauses need to be separated by a comma, a semicolon or a period. Effectively, these could be separate sentences, and the punctuation reflects that.
but once more is a dependent phrase that is set off from the main clause by commas because it is parenthetical in nature. Parenthetical clauses or phrases are those that are incidental to the main idea in the sentence and are of a type that could be set off in parentheses instead of commas.
so that he might throw him against the wall is a dependent clause that modifies catch and does not need to be set off by punctuation.
Similarly, in the second sentence, and for the first time in decades is also a parenthetical phrase. At times, such phrases are not set off by commas, but when they are longer or more complex, they usually are.
Some would even put a comma after the word and, rendering it
When they broke apart, the old warrior bled from many wounds, and, for the first time in decades, there was something close to worry in his eyes.
That approach seems too choppy for me.
Best Answer
The comma's good to make the meaning clear. "A land as old as time and..." leads the reader to expect another comparison ("A land as old as time and eternity"; "a land as old as time and space"...). There are two phrases here, and they need a little separation.
Which leads me to ask whether the and is necessary, and if
isn't clearer and simpler?
(You do need the comma here to indicate that it's the history of a land, not time.)