Trunks, Tiny, Kal'oear, Bort and Zandos. Please stop reading this now as it is a spoiler for you.

To all you experienced dragon heist DM's and players out there please help!

My players have a notorious knack for not keeping notes or hints throughout our games but I make up for it by lore dropping when needs be as it's the style they like.

The problem I have is I have been reading and playing dragonheist as I ran the story. They naturally didn't keep notes and haven't the foggiest about neverember's links to the gold (they do know reinar is his son) and didn't bring any other pc along.

They encountered Aurinax and naturally failed to convince or coerce him out of giving the gold. They are now stuck. They started a fight and retreated immediately up the spiral staircase to recoup.

Here they are taking a long rest and I'm stuck. How do I run the game forward in a satisfying conclusion without saying "well oops you failed to convince him so go home now". I plan to have the devil's from the Cassalantars come in next from behind into the vault to run into them. But I'm still stuck of if they beat the devil's, what do I do next?

They know they can't beat Aurinax. They've failed to convince him already. Thinking as a player, I don't know what kind of motivation I can give to go and try again since from their perspective they don't know how to get the gold safely.

Please help and offer your suggestions kind folk!