The Necessity of Travel

You could see smoke from the village by now, normally. There is none at the moment. You're not exactly sure what this means. You know that back home, things are bad enough that everything is being rationed for winter, even firewood. It might be that bad in Agnon's Wood as well. The road to the village hasn't ever been a well-traveled one, and nothing is growing well, not even the weeds that would normally cover up an unused road. That makes it hard to tell if people just aren't using it, or if the weeds are dying. Small blessing, perhaps.

The road to Agnon's Wood is mostly dirt and rock, and grows rockier as you go, so that by the time the tiny village is in sight in the middle of what was probably at one time a plentiful and sprawling fruit grove, it feels like the rocks have decided to cut out the middleman and simply stab you in the feet directly. The village is still there in front of you, a series of small, simple dwellings circled around one central circle of grass. But still, there's no smoke. And no people. Nothing is moving in the entire village. There's also a lack of any detritus that would normally accompany desertion, and there's no visible signs of violence.

Tatiana and Oxana explore several houses and come up with the following info.

The village definitely ran out of food. There's nothing in any of the pantries, and no meat hanging out behind the butchers, not even scraps. However, there's a working kiln and a small pile (1d6+1) iron ingots near it. Those should be usable somehow. The strange thing is, and you've found this in more than one house, are notes left, some to loved ones, some to children, some to 'whoever might find this' that all speak of going north into the mountains, where apparently according to these various people, 'a bounteous feast awaits.'

There's not much daytime left now. Shadows are already starting to stretch out into the central plaza. If you don't stay here, you'll end up camping on the road. That might not be safe, but then... neither might staying be.

What will you do?