This skip was found by me. With some simple jumps, backflips, and dashes, you can directly get to the central courtyard from the start.

There are 18 potential spies, and I always picked the same one in my attempts, so this strategy works with a probability of 1/18. I got it on my 12th attempt, so I got pretty lucky.

Additionally, the initial boat ride can take 3 different paths, and I got the slowest one. However the fastest one is only 3 seconds faster. Finally, the chosen NPC on the top layer can choose to go right or left. Left is slightly faster because the balcony is closer, but my NPC decided to go right, wasting another ~3 seconds.

Overall, there are 3 spots you need to get the perfect RNG in this dungeon, with a 1/3, 1/2, and 1/18 chance respectively, making the perfect run a 1/108 chance to happen. (And then you need to execute well.) But a sub-2:40 is most likely possible here, even with the same strategies.

Items used:

• Wearing: Onyx Amulet with Wind Sculpting Stone & Harmonic Music Stone, 3x Azerite Armor with the Longstrider trait, Scroll of Momentum, speed enchants
• Before entering: Fried Bonefish, Charged Phial of Alacrity
• During run: Nitro Boosts, Gunshoes, Quickwick Candlestick