Players captured by Xoud. Now what?

[Peter Acs]

So things went a bit awry and the party piled into the fight with the two robotic apprentices without fully being prepared.

One-by-one they were knocked unconscious by the apprentices, although they managed to blow one apart using their EMP Pistol.

The remaining apprentice drags them down to the dungeon below and, after some appropriate gloating, throws them into the central 'Hive Mind Research' cell for safe-keeping. After stripping their equipment of course. Having confronted the party twice already and knowing they are powerful casters, Xoud surely wouldn't let them recover spells through peaceful rest overnight (and in fact will use its Spectral Miasma to heal up the damage it has taken from the helpless PCs). WIth the Arcanist the spellbook can simply be taken away, but can Xoud stop the Druid from regaining their allotment of spells?

How does the party of a Druid, Gunslinger, Arcanist and Barbarian escape this predicament?

I'm thinking that Nargin could be instrumental in their escape, but how so?

[Peter Acs]

In terms of outside resources they also have:

Meyanda, who has been levelled up a couple of times and is currently guarding the Dusklight's escape pod for them whilst they ascend the tower. Although they have no direct means of contact for her.

Longdreamer, who can presumably communicate with the PCs whilst they are imprisoned as it is implied that it can try and communicate with Nargin also.

Three Azers who are currently busy looting what they need from the tower before departing for Torch. They would have seen the PCs being dragged through and been pretending to be busy.

[Nicolas Paradise]

I mean. As a GM your goal should be that the players succeed so to that end have a lazy guard forget to check on the party for 8 hours or let the party face convice a guard that there is a greater threat so that the divine caster can get 8h of rest and than prep something like anti tech field to disable the door locks and than make it a stealth mission to get their gear back. If they escape make sure the tower is on high alert when they return so the party knows the bads mean business.

[Peter Acs]

Thank you for the advice. Believe me, I want the players to succeed!

Having murdered their way through the tower there isn't much left of potential guards though! Other than the three befriended Azers and one of the two Apprentices, the tower has been emptied. It's possible that the Azers would be used as the guards?

Would the remaining Apprentice even know to take the PCs to the dungeon below, given that Xoud had not appeared to them for seven years for whatever reason? Maybe it would just lock them in one of the labs instead.

I do like the idea of Xoud trying to harvest the player's brains though...