Make a mundane quest exciting?

[Jellyburd]

BACKSTORY: My PCs are set to encounter a cult (they don't know that)
The premise of the cult is that the population of their community (they are nomads) MUST stay at 77 or their god will punish them.
The PCs will start by discovering a search party looking for 4 children that ran away. (There are 4 PCs in the group)
The NPCs will attempt to look for the kids while the group goes back to their community to help them under the guise of going to look for the kids after (Trying to avoid interactions with the kids) the cultists are going to attempt to make them stay there and become apart of the community to replace the kids if they are not found.

My question is how might you entertain a group of PCs for a day?
What simple (the cultists will ask them to help around camp instead of leaving) but not revealing things could the group do?
I thought about just foraging or hunting, but that sounds boring.
They will see clues as to something being off. Everyone over welcoming and repeating some phrase and eventually a ceremony where the eldest is killed as a mother gives birth to a child to keep the population correct.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

BACKSTORY: My PCs are set to encounter a cult (they don't know that)
The premise of the cult is that the population of their community (they are nomads) MUST stay at 77 or their god will punish them.
The PCs will start by discovering a search party looking for 4 children that ran away. (There are 4 PCs in the group)
The NPCs will attempt to look for the kids while the group goes back to their community to help them under the guise of going to look for the kids after (Trying to avoid interactions with the kids) the cultists are going to attempt to make them stay there and become apart of the community to replace the kids if they are not found.

My question is how might you entertain a group of PCs for a day?
What simple (the cultists will ask them to help around camp instead of leaving) but not revealing things could the group do?
I thought about just foraging or hunting, but that sounds boring.
They will see clues as to something being off. Everyone over welcoming and repeating some phrase and eventually a ceremony where the eldest is killed as a mother gives birth to a child to keep the population correct.

Foraging or hunting doesn't work unless the players need to do it, so maybe the village hides its food supplies.

Maybe they have contests that the PCs can participate in for minor rewards. Maybe they make up some threat, and because the NPCs are looking for the runaways the PCs need to stay to help defend them.