Nate tips his hat to Achreny after his response. "Sure thing Pal"

If possible Nate would try and participate in the search with Soar/Boar and Elspeth (and Jalt if he is accompanying) if for nothing more than to be beside his friends. He wouldn't discuss anything with them to not blow their cover, but it would make him happy to be around them is all.

"So howza bout we start by doing some sweeping checks, say there's 10 or so of us... so we split up maybe 5 meters and then just start walkin' in a straight line into the woods... sweeping with the line, checking as we go. You know, checkin' for things that don't look right... I've found many a dead horse this way.... ahem no offence, Achreny. I'm sure your guard isn't dead now is he my pal!" Nate's trying to get under Achreny's skin because he's still annoyed at him from before. And that he called him a squirt. 

So Nate's idea is for the group to get into a line, separated about 5 meters, then start making sweeps into the forest. 

Here's the other advantage part of the Survival check: (11 was first roll) 18

Nate, you find evidence that someone has entered the forest close to where Bodoric was standing guard.  Might have been Bodoric, might have been someone else.  Seems like a medium sized person like a human or elf, rather than a halfling or gnome.

Can Nate see any type of trail or tracks as to where they went, or where the person or someone came from? Is there any signs of Bodoric's belongings anywhere to be found by anyone in the line as we walked?

Also, can Nate get a sense of perhaps if anyone or something might be watching them, either directly or in a remote way? Perception 22

Here's the roll 20

(sorry, at first it said there was an error. Please use the first roll)

Elspeth gives a nod to Eldkin, glancing at Aldreny coldly as she leaves with the rest of the volunteers. "We should pair up if we need to split up out of seeing distance." She suggests once they are assembled. "So there's always one of us watching our backs. Line seems fine for now. He couldn't have gotten far.

She's on the lookout for an opportunity to be alone with perhaps Jalt or 'Boar' or Nate to cast speak with animals when no one's looking to convince perhaps a small bird to help scan the forest. If no one suggests splitting up though she'll search the forest in line with others.

Survival to follow trail: 10 Persuasion to persuade animal if opportunity arises: 16

Nate, you are pretty confident that no-one is watching you or following you.  There is a trail into the forest, which you can attempt to follow if you wish.

It seems as though Leda, Jak, Beyd Sechepol, Carlin and Achreny are waiting for more specific instructions.  Perhaps one of you needs to pair them up and send them off searching?  The woods are on the west side of the road, and you are at the south-east tip of them at the moment, near where the caravan is camped.

Red cross is where the caravan is camped.  Yellow cross is where you are now.  Green line is the edge of the forest.  Brown line is the road.

Elspeth, there are no small birds around at the moment, nor any small passing animals.  That that is rather odd for a forest like this.

Boar suggests pairs space out along the road in a line going from south to north, staying in sight of one another, and then all at once, slowly walking west to comb the forest for any sign. Point is to make sure everyone is within sight of each other or at least calling distance if the trees get thick, and to be sure they aren’t missing a sign of what happened or where he went.

You set up as Boar suggests, and form pairs:  Boar and Elspeth, Jalt and Beyd, Nate and Jak, Leda and Carlin.  No-one seems to want to partner with Achreny, so he goes and grabs a passer-by who is familiar to Boar - Fennet, the traveller who craves her gloves so much.  He protests, but Achreny doesn't give him much choice.  

You line up along the road, and set off into the forest, slowly searching and keeping in sight of each other.  

I have a Perception check from Nate and Elspeth; can I please get a check from Boar and Jalt?  Perception or Survival.

22 20 4

6 3

Perception: 5

Survival: 4

(of course lol)

You spend the four remaining hours of daylight combing through the forest; it's not a huge area, but it's still a lot of ground for only four pairs of people to cover.  Nate, you detect a few more signs of recent passage, but it becomes less clear if they were from a humanoid creature or not.  The sun is low in the sky, and you have found no sign of Bodoric.  You gather once again at the point where you started.

Achreny looks utterly dejected.  Leda walks up to him: It's possible that he just took off, wanted to go and do some hunting? she says.  Maybe he'll be back tomorrow morning.

The merchant looks her straight in the eye.  No, he says, the anger seeming to have left him.  He's a good lad, he...  He was a good lad.  I dunno.  Maybe something got him.

You can return to the camp and give up on the search if you wish, or attempt to search again through the night.  Most of the other members of the caravan seem to think this was a young idiot who got bored and wandered off, no doubt getting himself killed.  The few of had spent any time with Bodoric seem to doubt this, and begin to look nervously at the darkness around them.

Soar would also like to try, while searching with Elspeth, speaking to animals and ask what they have seen, people in the woods last night, things hunting people in the woods, anything interesting, and offering bribes of food to move things along. Not sure if this is before or after they reconvene - ideally before but understand if not possible. Maybe with two animal speakers we can have more success...

Soar, you are searching with Elspeth and encounter the same problem she does; there are simply no animals around, at least not as far as you can see.  And you are searching quite carefully.  You can make a Nature check if you wish.

(OOC:  This will be before you all meet up.  If anything changes as a result, we will retcon the post-search meeting...)

Nate splits up with Jak, and then would tell the others where he saw the recent passage marks/tracks "... but who's to say if it was a man or a beast.... you got me that's for sure"

When everyone meets back up, Nate would say "Well.... this isn't lookin' too promising... how long do you want to keep this up for?" he is asking Achreny.

Nature:  17

“Where.... did all the animals go?”

Dammit, says Achreny.  Stupid little sod's gotten himself killed, I reckon.  Gods, I hope it's some animal from the woods.  He lowers his voice, looking genuinely upset.  I hope we don't have a murderer travelling with us.   His eyes stray towards Carlin, then he stomps away as the last of the daylight disappears.

Soar, you can't really think of anything that would cause all the animals either to flee or to hide in their burrows for such a long time.  Something unnatural, maybe?

(Can Elspeth also make that nature check since she's with Soar? Or give Soar advantage.)

Elspeth is very unnerved by how dead the forest is (when it comes to animals, not plants). She is fairly eager to make her way out of the forest when they're done searching and they're meeting up again, although reluctant to give up on the search for the guard. "Unless we have more clues there's really no point in searching any further." 

Provided she takes a long rest this night and they don't set out immediately next morning, she'll try to discreetly cast locate animals or plants specifying for blackbirds to basically see if there's any sort of wildlife around at all.

Makes sense to give the druid a roll, in my humble opinion, given Soar's just walking around asking questions. 

Elspeth, you can make a Nature roll if you like.

The following morning, using your spell, you can locate the nearest blackbird, about fifty feet into the forest and up in a tree, perhaps thirty feet off the ground.