Forum

In this adventure from Starter Set, the characters are trapped in a cellar where there is obviously fresh food for them to pick up:
They see a number of sealed beer barrels and several cuts of salted meat, inedible without preparation, and several large loaves of crusty bread and wheels of hard cheese.

When they escape safely, they suddenly have a shortage of food?
You have set out on your postman duties across the Shire without provisions, save for a few bits of old and stale bread and cheese from beneath the Town Hole of Michel Delving, and this is a problem of capital import!

Where are the loaves of crusty bread? Where is the salted meet for roasting? Where are the wheels of hard cheese? Am I missing something???

Two questions arise:1) Did the party think to take any of the provisions in the celler? And 2) How much time has passed between the one adventure and the other?

The narration could be altered as appropriate.

1) There is written they can take it: (the Loremaster should note if any Player-heroes take some of the foodstuffs as it may become relevant later in the adventure).
2) The second part starts, once the Player-heroes have escaped Michel Delving, so I suppose from "immediately" to "not later than the next day".

If the option to take food wasn't there, food wouldn't be part of that cellar or it wouldn't be directly mentioned that the characters could take it I guess.

Okay, you could rule that, as inexperienced adventurers, the group has already consumed any provisions that they took from the celler. Or, alternately, they still have enough for one or two good meals. Your choice!

Though this adventure sucks in terms of consequences as even if you gain fatigue, it litterally comes at no risk as no chance for anyone to get weary and even then the game takes back the fatigue freely by virtue of the elven encounter.

The only lasting impact in this adventure is another animal encounter, which will have consequences in the final adventure.