... after doing 'Investigate the Beach' near Silvanus' Grove I tried to do a quick rest before actually talking to the tiefling child at the beach - because I had had the encounter previously without all my spells available - and when I came back I found that the quest had gone about its way and the harpies had killed the boy before I could intervene. The world will progress if you take a rest, basically.
Really? that's awesome. I was hoping that rest will have an impact (such as time passage). I'll try that as well, just to make sure it wasn't a bug on your end.
Was surprised about it myself! I imagine that, to get this to happen, you have to rest -near- the quest. Because I tried resting with the child in view but just out of initiation range and then when it came back from camp the boy was dead on the rocks. So if you rest 100 times outside of the range of starting the quest, nothing changes. Rest once near the area with the quest started you still have the quest active but can no longer save the boy.
At least, that's my guess, haha.
