The following all happens in a town and the nearby surrounding area.
So my party, hereby referred to as their classes are currently third level and have infiltrated a cults hideout, they went there looking for Rogues friend and snuck in with disguises and managed to bluff their way into where the friend was being held. She was in a holding cell. After some deliberation they devised a plan to cast silent image and sneak her out, they couldn’t manage to pick the lock and Cleric smashed the door in, this was heard by nearby cultists and they decided to just make a break for it. The cult massively outnumbered them and the party got surrounded. Sorcerer, who is an Aasimar and can fly at 3rd level, flew past everyone and escaped while the rest of the party surrendered. We ended the session there and Sorcerer told me after the session that they plan to go to Cleric’s tavern to get the barkeep and any tough looking patrons to form a quick mob.
The conundrum here is that I can’t think of a good reason for these cultists to not just kill the party aside from that’s not fun. The cult is aware that one of them escaped is probably going to bring the law down on them, so they’ll also want to leave. If I was them (and in a way I am) I’d probably kill the witnesses and bail.
Any advice?
Could be an opportunity for “a hidden ally with their own agenda.”
Maybe it’s another prisoner who has found a secret way to escape.
Maybe it’s another cult member who wants to prove the leader’s weakness, so orchestrates a coup using the PCs as either bait or allies.
Maybe it’s someone who infiltrated the cult to seek revenge, and they have a plan for the party to break out and sow chaos so that the revenge-seeker can get their revenge.
I was thinking something along these lines too - making it more of a “character drama” rather than a large-scale political thing.
Like, maybe the cult does decide to kill these characters, so they assign a particular NPC (or maybe a duo of NPCs?) to do the job.
Depending on the tone of the campaign, these would-be-executioners could be humorously incompetent, or they could secretly side with the party, or they could have some other interesting quirks that make them something the party can deal with - maybe they bicker a lot and it takes their focus away from the PCs enough for them to make a move, or maybe they recognize one of the PCs from childhood, or myriad other possibilities.