Against the Cult: The Next Day (1.2)

The wagon tracks cross over the previous wagon and cart tracks, so Aanbo is certain they are newer. Since the party left, someone has driven a cart to the game trail from Orlane, or driven a cart from the game trail to Orlane.

Looking more closely, the dwarf recognizes that there are the marks of an ox's hooves in between the wheel tracks; their direction indicates that the wagon was leaving the game trail, heading east.
Correct; west is Hochoch, east is Orlane.

A few minutes later, Xana, Ogbar, Quest, and Durren arrive with Abel at the site of the owlbear attack. Any of them can roll perception checks if they wish.

Durren calls for a pause as Abel makes his way anxiously toward the game trail leading off of Cecily's Road to his home. "Prithee, wait, gentlefolk. I hath espied fresh wagon tracks..." The antiquated human points out the fresh marks.

Durren nods, seeing what Ogbar described, now that the barbarian has pointed it out to him. He frowns, then stands and inspects the bushes. "Forsooth, mine eyes doth espy that the wain that we didst purchase from the wright, Rufus, is no longer where we left it." Ogbar, bringing his tracking skills to bear, sees even further: someone brought an ox, hitched it to your wagon, and then drove it north into the trees toward the farm. Some time later, the same cart returned to Cecily's Road and headed east.

Abel is impatient. "Gracious Lords and Lady of all Plenipotence, I understand your concern about your wagon, but as for me, I must continue to see my family safe!" With that, he continues into the trees along the northern path toward his farm.

As the twilight deepens into darkness and the first stars are becoming visible, Aanbo meets Abel as the man is hurrying out of the woods toward his house. "What? Gone??" Abel slumps to the ground, his legs giving out in his shock. "Why? Why would they go?"

Meanwhile, some hours to the west, night is falling on the group trundling the hand cart bearing Devek back to Hochoch. Thacogygax is really starting to feel blind in the darkness under the trees, while Sara and Klak can still see. But it is Morgran that has to reassure them that the boy is still alive. To all appearances, Devek's cold, inert body is a corpse, and they keep having to shake off morbid thoughts that they're taking the body to a funeral.

Will this group continue marching through the night, or find a place to camp?

Abel rouses himself as Ogbar, Quest, Xana, and Durren come out into the farm's clearing, following the older wagon tracks. Abel calls out to his family members as he spends the next several minutes rushing around inside the farmhouse and barns to confirm what Aanbo has told him. "Elista! Wenderly! Abella! Emiless! Torren!"

Eventually, he winds down, dejected, and nods in agreement with Ogbar's pronouncement. "Yes...yes, I must go after them. On foot I will be faster than a wagon, and I may yet catch them before they reach Orlane..." He goes to retrieve his spear.

Xana is not sure where the family went, because the only fresh prints are from the ox and an adult male - presumably Jonbon. He made several trips back and forth, perhaps loading stuff from the house into the wagon, but who knows what that would be. If she wishes to, Xana is easily able to track the path that the wagon took, first south along the path through the woods, then turning east down Cecily's Road toward Orlane.

Aanbo can elaborate, but anyone who goes inside will see that it looks like everyone in the Jarl family just vanished in the middle of a meal; there's no sign of struggle or violence. Everyone is just...gone.