You may recall that I nearly had a similar situation when running "Masterwork Imbroglio", but I managed to have the villain reclaim the painting and run into the cellar with it, forcing the PCs to do a bit more exploration of the hideout. I doubt I'll be able to repeat that here ... but it's possible one of the PCs will get stuck in the window (It is a DC 20 after all!), and they may decide to try their luck going downstairs instead. The players are focused on escaping, not fighting.
OK so I was wrong. This is pretty much exactly how it played out!
One of Vidorant's guards grappled Dimble, who was carrying the bag of holding with the diadem in it. Vidorant then used her Beguiling Whispers to stun him and take the bag off him. She then fled along the hall and down the stairs and through the various rooms on the ground floor before going out her secret door in the external wall (which she closed behind her) and then fled.
The PCs took too long fighting some of the guards before going in pursuit. Vidorant successfully escaped with their bag. Not only that, but we had to pause the game still in combat with the PCs split into three groups!
Nissa managed to get out onto the balcony, where she proceeded to
misty step onto the roof of the building across the street. She is now heading back to the inn where they got rooms.
Meanwhile, Dimble went down in Vidorant's office but managed to stabilize. Belwar went speeding after Vidorant and ran through most of the downstairs rooms, finding guards along the way, before using his Fade Away feat by the front door. He escaped outside and went around to the rope ladder, climbed up to the balcony, then shadow stepped to the door (so the guards on the balcony watching for Nissa across the road wouldn't see him), and got back into the office to revive Dimble.
Meanwhile, Catnip is all alone downstairs facing off against some guards. Belwar triggered the invisible stalker when he ran across the library carpet. I told Catnip's player that she'd sensed a presence in the room, so she used
faerie fire to illuminate it. Since she was not going
into the room with the stairs nor was she taking any of the books in the library, the stalker didn't attack. She asked it what it was. Since it can speak, it told her it was the library guardian. The point is - if she tries to retreat the way she came, by going back up the stairs, it
will attack her. But if she follows Belwar, there are the nine or so guards on the ground floor to contend with. She may just have to surrender!
Assuming all (or most) of the PCs
do rendezvous back at the inn, the players' plan is to take a long rest, then go to Vidorant's mansion and have Nissa cast
locate object on the bag of holding to see if it's inside.
I figure Vidorant, being a master thief, wouldn't go straight back to her own house. She'll either have another place she can lie low in Starilaskur, or she might even hot-tail it out on the next lightning rail - perhaps even going to the PCs' home turf in Sharn. Maybe she has a penthouse apartment there. (She masquerades as a wealthy socialite after all.)
Or maybe she goes somewhere else. Since her ex-partner, Goldenbeard, got her kicked out of the Aurum, she might not want to show her face in Sharn (where he lives).
Anyway, the PCs want to retrieve their bag of holding. I don't want to make it impossible, but I also don't want to make it too easy. This is, perhaps, the consequence for them not even considering her counter-offer.
I've got three weeks till our next session, so plenty of time to figure things out! But we've definitely gone off-script now!
