I'm running Flood Season now and I'm two sessions into the Kopru Ruins. The first session the players made it to the beach without setting off the alarm, got into the ruins and went straight to the mook barracks. Killed a bunch of mooks then retreated to the ledge to rest.
This is where I start thinking that if I were a bandit mook of the Ebon Triad I would have quit as soon as they said I was going to be living in these slimy, stinky ruins. I've still got a bunch of mooks left, so I give them a couple of hours to discover the carnage in the barracks. Then another hour to alert the complex (and that's pretty generous) and find out that the intruders have left. Then Triel and Skaven confer, Skaven will take a contingent of mooks out to the beach and use arcane eye to look around. He discovers the PC's snoozing on the ledge (with a watch set who didn't see the arcane eye), but the cage is on the PC's side.
So what's the plan? They can't move the cage, as it will immediately alert the intruders. The rogue mooks would never make it climbing the rope and they know it. They can't cut the rope, as it's their only way out, and they're not going anywhere near the water because of the Skulvyn (which they don't know is dead because it's a summoned creature that would have gone poof when it was killed).
So they give all the mooks bows, and have them wait for the cage to move. Skaven and Triel each keep some mooks in reserve (3 fighters for Skaven, and 4 rogues for Triel) and if it all goes bad, hope someone gets away to warn them. It's not a great plan, but it's the best I can come up with over a week of thinking about it.
The PC's are warned by the Kopru (the fighter is dominated) and they make a barrier of the boards, ride on down behind cover and slaughter the mooks. Then they head towards Triel's section of the complex and, big fight later, she and her mook rearguard are dead too. So now the PC's are going to go back to the ledge and rest again, so Skaven will have plenty of time to plan if he's going to mount a defense.
Frankly if I were Skaven, I'd order the remaining mooks (3 fighters, 1 rogue) to cut the rope, and when they objected, tell them I have a plan for escape. While they were doing that I'd cast invisibility, and spider climb my way out of there leaving the mooks to their fate. The only problem I see with that is Skaven likes his spiders and has a bunch of stuff that he'd probably like to keep, but alive w/o stuff is better than dead like Triel.
Basically this bandit gang has only one way out, and the party is camped there, blocking it. Ascending to take them out is suicide, they've killed most of your comrades and one of your leaders, so what are you going to do?
Just a thought. Once the PC's enter the Kopru Ruins, Skaven sneaks up to the cage with his valuables. He crams his stuff (and if he's generous his mooks) into the cage, spider climbs to to the ledge and reels in the cage. Once he's up there safely with his valuables, he cuts the cable and runs away.
Hey,if I were Skaven, that's what I would do.
They way I played the Ebon triad was as three individual cells. None of the given information about the organization nor its three leaders led me to believe they were truly capable of organizing a joint operation of any kind. I could not see Skaven and Triel having a any discussion at all, and the suggestion that Skaven just haul butt up the tram is a very likely course of action given his discription.
As for the mooks, well the fear of what ever evilness there leaders or the gods of there leaders may visit upon them is proably more than enough incentive to fight. Either that, or they are crazed cultists.
Well, since Skaven has some of the wands of control water, and Triel took them all from Sarcem in the Lucky Monkey, they've got to be on speaking terms-- at least enough so that if Triel found her contingent of mooks slaughtered in their barracks, she'd send a runner to Skaven to tell him so.
I'd say Tarkilar is barking mad and no one wants anything to do with him, which is why he's not involved.
I like the idea of Skaven packing up his stuff and taking off next time the PC's come down-- it gives them a chance to hear it and stop it, but that will probably lead to yet another battle on the beach, which I think will be a tad repetitious. The other thing is that all the traps Skaven has on his stuff will be moot, as it will be a big sack o' crap on the floor of the cage.
On the other hand, Skaven might get away scott free.
On the other other hand, the Kopru would alert the dominated fighter of something happening anywhere near the lake, so the PC's would come out and the 3rd battle of the beach would commence.
On the other other other hand, Skaven doesn't know that the Kopru is spying from the lake.
I'm torn.
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Regarding the skulvyn, it's been called with planar ally and not summoned, by the cleric of Vecna that quit The Ebon Triad to join the Cagewrights (can't remember name, Weirjon "Fishes" apprentice I think, I'm at work). That means it's actually physically on the Prime.
If you kill called creatures they don't disappear as far as I can remember, I know the wizard player in my game wants to bleed the skulvyn for it's demonblood and use it's corpse for demon organ components, just so his lab looks suitably authentic :) The fully advanced half-fiend morkoth, or Crater Lake Monster, was initially called by the kopru when they battled the spell weavers thousand of years ago. They could have gated it in as well I guess.
That aside it does appear that your players have The Ebon Triad bottled in, although Skaven could indeed easily esacpe using his slippers, elixir's of hiding, and his invisibility spell.