Good game, I win.

She teleports in the same round by allies do.
They appear 5ft immediately above and behind Morgethai's gang.

Readied action: -

She's in range for her True Seeing now. The hitwizards Morgethai supposedly brought with her aren't real. They're a Permanent Image. If she hadn't had True Seeing from her headband, she would've wasted her actions trying to kill them. There's even an object between them. Morgethai wen't through the effort of making an illusion of a completely solid but transparent copy of herself, in the hopes that Abrogail would spend a Time Stop trying to annihilate it.

Good job underestimating her.

Abrogail's still invisible, Morgethai will guess she came with and know her approximate location but not exactly, and she'll think Abrogail is unprepared.
Abrogail is fully prepared and as quick as anyone can ever be. There isn't going to be a surprise round. There isn't going to even be a turn.
She doesn't have her Contingency set to trigger so easily as from someone teleporting nearby. She has too many teleporting minions she needs to coordinate with, and in any event she wants this fight.

Next you'll say "She hears the verbal component to Time Stop, being uttered by an undetectable source directly behind her"?

You hear the verbal component to Time Stop, being uttered by an undetectable source directly behind you.

Readied action: Time Stop.

Readied actions are immediate, they can interupt other stuff. I get to go first.

I turn around. Anything on True Seeing or Arcane sight?
I see nothing? I feel with my arms.
I feel a solid, Morgethai shaped object at about where I heard the voice?
Great.

I'm going to put these mithral rings of permanencied Shrink Item around her body parts. I'm going to put these already shrunk steel spheres inside her mouth, opened to cast the verbal component to Time Stop, and under her arm pits.

She's going to mess up casting her spell.

I'm going to ready an action to say the command word to the shrunken items.

Who's going to get Rocket Tagged today, Morgethai?

The invisible, Mind Blanked wizard behind you, who can't cast Time Stop at all even though he knows what the words are, just gets completely wrecked by that attack. I know he volunteered and everything, but I'm still going to be apologizing for a week after we ressurect him.

Morgethai Teleported to about 20 feet below Abrogail, for those still trying to keep track of spacial relationships.

She doesn't get another shot at this if she's wrong, but those rings sure look like they were put there during a time stop.
She's very very sure that really is Abrogail.

Time Stop.

Three days earlier:

Apparently he has to wait a week before the second dose or it doesn't work.
He probably shouldn't fight at Augustana himself, if he's just going to end up dying again.

The mistake he was making, he thinks, is taking all of this seriously. It's not that it isn't serious, the fate of the immortal souls of thousands of people is definitely serious.

It's just that taking it seriously doesn't help.
He's not more capable, able to make better choices, by doing that.

Tet was, obviously, correct all along. He can get better results and avoid burning himself out by treating it like a big game. Treating it seriously, the only thing he could think of was how to fight better, how to destroy more devils and devil-worshippers with fewer spell slots.

Treating it un-seriously, it's obvious you don't need to fight like that at all.

He has not actually told Astrua everything, despite giving up on the seriousness that made never telling anyone anything until he drove himself insane seem like a necessary step in the first place.

He's told her a few lies too, just to convince himself he can. He's maybe 70% sure she can't tell the difference.

He's told her enough that they're both wearing masks, when they walk through the door.

Absalom is one of the few cities in the world where worshipping Norgorber is legal.

The cleric in charge doesn't really know what he's supposed to be doing with that, theologically speaking. It almost seems heretical, to be legally worshipping Norgorber. He tries to illegally worship Him too a bit, to be safe.

They have a nice store with a nice foyer, where they sell spells only Evil clerics can cast, or spells any cleric can cast to people who can only buy from Evil clerics.

Surprisingly, they don't actually rob their clients. You can walk in, buy a spell, pay what it says on the price list, and walk out unstabbed. Representatives of Abadar have confirmed it. The usual assumption is that they sell the information of who bought what later, or use it as blackmail, or something.

They don't do that either. It'd be too obvious. Clerics of Norgorber are cooler than that. Still, it's considered wise to wear a mask.

Sending, ostensibly, gets you 375 bits of information.

It also gives the timing, the fact you sent the message and at that precise moment.
It also gives an impression of the sender, enough to recognise someone you know.

Robaldo imagines that maybe he doesn't need to actually send any words, that the empty sending of zero bits would be enough. He's not that confident though.

What he sends is "I want to be rich. I am at the Absalom Temple." And then a description of his mask.
He gets back a time a few hours from now, and another description of a mask.

"Hey."

"Hey. New girlfriend?"

The mask really helps with plausible deniability. No one can see you blush.
Saying "No" is losing. Pausing to think is also losing.

"No comment." he says immediately.

"..."

"So do you have like an apartment or something? My alleged new girlfriend and I don't actually have a place to stay in Absalom yet."

"God you're stupid. Yes, there are private rooms downstairs. Warded and everything. Come along."

"Great. So, I have a job and I'm looking to hire a pickpocket. Like a really really good pickpocket. Do you guys by any chance know who might be the single best pickpocket in the world?"

"What's the target."

"..."

"Yes, I can probably help you find the single best pickpocket in the world."

The present again:

Time Stop.

She finds Abrogail easily through the invisibility by Echolocation, because it's a Transmutation and not a Divination spell, as any experienced Transmuter knows.

She takes out her Dimensional Shackles. She can't remove anything Abrogail is already wearing, but there's nothing that says she can't dress her up in more things. As soon as the shackles are locked around her wrists they're subject to the timestop and freeze in place. She puts a second pair around her ankles.

She takes out her Universal Solvent, and pours it over Abrogail's head.
She's not a complete idiot. She at least glued the crown to her head.

She's still got time? Solid Fog.
It'll delay any of Abrogail's allies figuring out what's going on when the timestop ends, and hopefully slow them down if they tries to interfere. Her friends have Echolocation too, obviously.

She readies an action.

Honestly she's surprised it lasted long enough that she could do that. She only really needed the first two.

The timestop ends.

Just so you know, my Will save is "Yes", even without the headband, and I still have Spell Resistance 31 from both the headband and the spell.

I don't die easily.

Readied action: Dispel Magic: Spell Resistance.

It's a caster level check. She'd have coinflip odds against Abrogail or Aspexia.
Neither of them cast the Spell Resistance.
It's only a 5th circle cleric spell. Their own spell slots, on the day of a battle, are too important.
They got a mid-level cleric to do it for them. It goes down easily.

And now the real gang arrives, a single beat in time later, coordinated over the distance by Message spell.

The cleric casts Invisibility Purge. There are neither saves nor Spell Resistances.

They're all in midair, they've all got fly on.
There's a dramatic battle happening a hundred feet below them, with spells and dragons all around.
It'd be distracting to a lesser thief.

He's directly above her. She's wearing the shiniest magic crown he's ever seen.
There was Sovereign Glue holding it in place a moment ago. It's dissolved away in under a second, right in front of him.

He's a Prankster Bard, level 5.
It means he can Swap her real crown out for the fake one in his hand as an Extraordinary Ability.
Yes, he's a gnome. Plenty of gnomes are Norgorberites. He uses Alter Self on jobs and at business meetings. Don't tell anyone.

He's usually small but he's currently tiny, thanks to Reduce Person.
It uses Sleight of Hand instead of Combat Maneuver. It's a class skill.
He's got 5 skill points in Sleight of Hand.
He's got very high dexterity. He's got a Belt of Dexterity.
He grew up on the streets. He's got deft hands.
He has an Encouraging Greater Heroism.
It's his Moment of Greatness. It's his Grand Destiny.
Morgethai herself Bestowed Insights upon him, just before the fight started.
He has Improved Steal. He has a Readied Action.

It's a DC 41 Sleight of Hand check. It's not physically possible for him to fail it.
And now he has a Crown.