Grace informed Paytowin what they had found at the top of this keep. They suspected that there was another prisoner up there, most probably Dograr. David asked if Paytowin could free the prisoners down in the basement. Those freed prisoners could serve as a distraction to lure the guards away.
Paytowin told them that he was already in the process of doing that. Most of the prisoners were officials who opposed Boron when he announced his rebellion, hence they were Thelgrun's allies. Several were just level 1 civilians but the rest were combatants. No high-level one, though. The strongest one was level 65 special elite grade.
Paytowin didn't feel comfortable using these prisoners as bait. If he had to do that, he would be with them and try to protect them as best as possible.
With his lockpicking skill, it didn't take him long to free all the prisoners. The locks here were not of high difficulty.