it takes basically no time at all, for her to capture in the forest of fortress, in fact it takes about the same in fact likely even less time in the forest.eh considering riala objective at that time was capturing simon the chance for them to slip out exist at least, and simon has deal with riala for multiple time and i vaguely remember theres a hint that simon are pretty slippery to escape riala so i think he did have some experience to make escape plan against riala though i am pretty sure they encounter mostly in open field base on their conversation due to the war, outside of simon have train to resist that magic at least so he can at least carry one of them (hopefully he chose altina since as you mention hero tend to die if touch wrongly and probably refuse to run anyway, hence even i dont consider simon and altina sacrifice themselves to save the hero even in game the hero end up become the sacrificial meat shield for some of the party), compare to the castle one which i am pretty sure i remember right that the trap was the middle gate literally locked after they enter with such single narrow path no hole or crack to open between them dont help that they spare the succubus to get betrayed by them later hence cant escape, which is surprising to me considering simon past life and action against the bartender, not even arguing to not spare them or keeping an eye on them or bind them, regarding the cave true, though the cave did have labyrinthine part to it and you can block their path by moving the boulder around to get some time or lock them with such boulder, sure sure riala can teleport but it still give them time and blind spot where they are now beside time was not on riala side with fickle incubus king, also hopefully the bandit make it obvious (either the lack of it or make some resistance or ruckus) since the cave did have the bandit too also varia with her extreme luck was around and they have explosive.
btw i kinda vaguely remember riala can detect simon hence she show up occasionally in simon camp during simon attempt, but i cant remember the reason so maybe you can help to fresh up my memory about it, and if the reason was because simon have the shard, then at least i can make excuse that riala cant detect simon before that even if she have mole in the church and forest are huge with many place to hide to precisely pin point where simon are at that location despite knowing he is in the forest.
i guess i dont reach that part yet, as i mention so far as i saw i dont see one or i dont remember or missing that occur, though you did mention the person die young though because he get sucked dry, i think it still a better fate than the female one which shown to last pretty long to the point their mind are broken and they need to bear child themselves.
also they would have 0 ideal Riala would be there before she traps them and then there is nothing they could do she could genuine fight the whole group of bandits and Simon group at once easily in fact it would be easier there because Riala would need to put in some effort to start with instead of just shut door though could easily just they pass through said boulders and then push them shut meaning no way back and have to go through her
Like all she needs is like a succubus under illusion and there is nothing they can do kind of like how Yara jumps the group only worse because you Know Riala, Hell Yara follows and ambushes them instantly taking out the chosen temporally and then despite being much weaker than Riala aka Yara traps them perfectly by herself.
It was years and simon thought the exact same thing that Alina went through would happen to him, Riala of course goes nah I want you we have thousands of mindless cocks
the guy fate is exactly the same only fate worse is if the Incubus king had her even if she would have died much sooner like all the other elves, female elves he had
she didn't really track the shard just kept tabs on him as he travelled, why it took her like a day to find him in the forest because he said he was heading in the other direction to the Knife. she might have also been doing a weird job at the time similar to how when she help telaport him to Megail location who she also tracked quickly while also looking for a giant chess set made of Feaces