doghead
thotd
I am, I think. Not so much my realism, but the character's. And at this point Eos doesn't have any real incentive to put his life on the line. Maybe curiosity. Lets go with curiosity for the moment.5th option is to return and report and let real soldiers deal with this. But we're not here for realism.
As for your other points, mostly I agree. We don't know what is at the farm, but I suspect more likely to be friendly than hostile given it was only a few hours march from the town and, iirc, in a settled farming area. And we don't know if there are other exits, but I was thinking more along the lines of luring them to us, which is still feasible even if there are other exits.
Splitting the party in #4 could be dealt with in two or three posts. Splitting the party in #3 is functionally the same as your last option. ie: ditch the NPC.
In the end, happy to go with the group decision, which seem to be leaning to #1/#3 (depending on what we do with the NPC). Maybe #3, with the NPC left at the entrance as a fall back position if the PC's get into trouble.
thotd