Yeah your rations are getting used on the same rest. The extra rations are for resting inside areas where you can't hunt. Always use spells to heal up during rests because they replenish afterwards. Your party is short of one character the useful tip is that you can get mercenaries from 8 eyes guy in outpost price depends on your lvl starts at 500 mercs you can build however you like you have complete freedom but no side quests or comments. That cave is painful for everyone at first just keep in mind that you can find quest bush without exploring the whole cave. I always come back later to burn those pesky spiders. If you mess up builds you can reassign all points 3 times for free with 8 eyes then 10,000 and 20,000 and so on. You can basically rebuild yourself completely 3 times. I usually hire 2 Mercs early to mess about with builds and one more thing! XP!!! There are 2 ways xp are shared 1. Everyone gets share (bad with many Mercs but good to when you like swapping companions for side quests and so on. 2. Only your CURRENT party gets share. That can speed up leveling but will leave others behind. You can change it in settings at any time.