My group is playing through part 1. They have recently shut down Verik and the Cow Hammer Boys. They went to Old Korvosa and encountered who were subtly talking rebellion. They followed the dock workers back to a warehouse where a bard was giving a speech to rile them up and talking about the plan to make a riot erupt the following day. The dockworkers noticed the party eavesdropping and tried to attack them, resulting in the dockworkers and the bard being knocked out. They woke up the bard and interrogated him, learning about Ambassador Amprei's plot to incite rebellion in the city to try and drive down real estate prices.
One of the members of the dockworkers was conscious and overheard the interrogation, turning his opinion sour toward the whole thing. He tried to share this with the other dockworkers and said he could see he was being misled, but the party decided it'd be best to take him any anyway
The party decided to take the 5 dockworkers and bard back to Citadel Volshyanek to put them in jail (without giving a reason to Korvosan Guard other than to hold them.)
A pressing time commitment led to the party splitting so a fetchling (former member of the guard) and an orc (full blooded orc, wannabe gangster) decided to take these 6 prisoners back to Citadel Volshyanek while the rest of the group went to the theater. It's pretty late at night.
The 6 prisoners tried to break free, but (being weakened and chained together) were put down handily. However, it's still the middle of the night in Old Korvosa, and they just made a huge ruckus while the city is in anarchy.
Originally, I was thinking that I would just let them get back to the citadel following the failed escape. But as I thought on it more, the situation is really that an orc and a fetchling (it has been established that neither are common or very welcome in Korvosa) are essentially dragging a chain gang of 5 dock workers and a well known local man through the streets at crossbow point, in the sketchiest part of the city, at night, with no legal right to do so. It's also happening in the part of the city that has already been established to be the least policed, and which often has its own justice.
I don't think the people in the area would let this happen after the ruckus that was made. It'd likely be as if some local boys were being dragged down the street by the most stereotypical bad guys the average citizen could imagine.
Important to note, the orc player missed last session and didn't have a say in this plan to take the people back. He's great at rolling with whatever happens, but I don't want to "punish" anyone for the choices. I think it's important for the players to remember what their actions look like to the rest of the world though. I was considering having this work as an opportunity to introduce another character like Grau Soldado.
I also want to avoid this taking up a ton of time in the session, since there are five players and this only involves two.
How would others handle this sort of situation?