With Zack starting the round of attacks with a deadly cut, followed up by a much weaker strike by Nadaar and then several arrows from Nadia strike the creature with deadly accuracy. Angar fires a bolt of frost from his staff at the creature for good measure but the attack is unnecessary as the Bodak let's out a ghastly scream as it falls limply to the ground. With its magic dissipated, it's now safe to look at the creature.

As the Bodaks file body goes limp Angar walks over and pokes it with Yorick as if to confirm it is infact dead.before sighing with relief. Well that was one way to start the day. Shall we continue on the trail?

Zack seemed almost disappointed. He had been expecting ... well... more. But it was also clear he was glad it was dead before it caused more harm. His expression was like that of a person who's been told the boogeyman was a horrid evil and powerful creature only to find it snapped like a twig at the touch. The 'danger' of it was... effectively Nil so long as you knew how to handle it. But.. I suppose that applies to everything huh...  he said aloud, but to no one in particular. With a sigh of relieved tension, he re-sheathes his sword finally. And looks around at all the re-death around him. 

He was tempted to take the weapons of the dead to sell.. to recoup some of his 'losses' but decided against it in the end. A way I'd prefer not to repeat, if possible. But yes. Lets.

Nadaar did not allow himself to breath a sigh of relief without at least poking the downed creature a few times for a good measure. Not enough to pierce the skin, but certainly enough to get some form of reaction should it merely be feigning its demise. Then remembering its unnatural nature, he sighs and mutters something along the lines of "foolish dragon" as he cleaned off the blade using its cloak before sheathing it. "Hm? What was...?" He would start to ask of Zack; but, appearing to think better of it, just waved his hand in what he hoped was 'nevermind' gesture.

"I will have not either use of my breathe weapon or more specialized techniques without a short rest at least. But, thanks to Nadia here, it can be put off for now. Let's be on our way." He said as moved to once again roughly take point alongside Rillex and Nadia to help with picking up the trail once more.

"Woo~" Nadia breathes out after seeing how easily the bodak fell with successful combined attacks, the creature easier to take down than she initially thought. She makes her way to the corpse with a slight pep in her step, seemingly in better spirits now that everything was taken care of with little fatalities. The ranger promptly plucks out any salvageable arrows she could before turning back to the others with a nod and gets back on the trail with Nadaar's assistance.

Survival: 10

With the aid of Nadaar and Rillex you manage to pick up the trail once more. Though the tracks of the cart are much fainter in the forest, especially while it's raining which is destroying the tracks left behind. Luckily however you notice that the prints left behind by the skeletons and zombies from earlier seem to have come from the same direction as the cart, and when you lose the cart you simply follow the foot prints in the muck.

Several hours pass and the rain starts to pick up. The trees shelter you as much as they can, but it's not long until you're all wet, cold, and covered in mud. Still Nadia knows the important of following the tracks while she can, or else the rain will completely destroy them. You continue east, for several hours. The further you go, the more the land starts to get swampy. Nadia and Zack but know that means you must be getting to the edge of the forest where it meets with the High Moors.

Nadia eventually looses the tracks but, knowing they more or less continued east towards the swamp she continues to lead the party. It's not much longer before she signals everyone to stop, pointing out an area of overgrowth. On close inspection, it appears to be a cave whose entrance has been blocked by foliage. As best as Nadia can tell, it seems the most likely place to hide, and the entrance is big enough for a cart to fit.

Determination fueled her to continue forward through the forest and swamp, even despite the chilling feeling sinking deep within her bones at the cold rain that soaked her through and through. They carried on and made good time, all things considered, and upon approaching the foliage blocked entrance, she would carefully pull away just enough for her to get a quick peek inside prior to turning to to the boys.

"Stops here," She whispers quietly. "A place to hide, it seems. I can sneak my way in to scope it out real quick, then come back to tell you guys what I see. Sound good?"

Had there been any objections, she would stay and give her reply had she had any/any were needed. If there were none, she would clear a bit more of the foliage for her to get through, get her bow and an arrow at the ready just in case, and squeeze her way in...

Sneak: 27
Perception: 17

Throughout the trek, Zack probably had the worst of it. Heavy armor.... Sinking into the mud. The fabric portions of his armor only growing heavier. His hair actually losing it's usual shape, and falling into a more 'straight, long hair' situation. He kept his mind focused enough to keep up with everyone else even as the water soaks into his metallic boots that acted more like a basin for the water than anything. His feet eventually pruning from lack of air. Occasionally, he'd ignite his blade long enough to keep the water from settling onto it into rust. He'd been through worse even before he joined the military and had to maintain discipline. Despite all of it, he couldn't say he was happy walking in the rain either way. His eyes stayed on the deathwhisperer though. He may have helped earlier but much like a certain useless Aqua he wondered if maybe the deathspeakers words may be true but come at the price of.. inadvertently attracting the dead to him.

Zacks Opinion of the man had shifted slightly in the last fight. But it was still tinged with doubt, which was unusual.. as Zack usually gave everyone the benefit of the doubt... But still.. this guy had... Anyways. 

Mm. I see. Allright. I trust you to do it safely. Just come back in one piece yeah? he said with a nod and a thumbs up. And no sooner than he'd blinked.. she was quite literally gone.

The more the environment turned closer to marsh-like conditions, the more at ease Nadaar appeared to become during the trek. As if some part of his being saw it as home. If he were more of a mind for it, any observations would have lead his black dragon ancestry coming into play. Instead, the dragonborn waged an again, off-again war within to stay focused, and not find some place to sit and simply enjoy the cool atmosphere.

The sight of the cave came as a welcome relief from the internal debate. With a simple but curt nod, Nadia is given his trust before she darts off into the dark. His attention than diverts to figuring out the best way to climb his way up and above the cave mouth if at all possible to find a point of comfortable enough to sit and keep vigil on the surrounding area. "I love it when it rains. Usually runs off the scales just nicely, cools the blood." He commented on fairly quietly while awaiting Nadia's return.

Nadia enters the cave, sneaking behind the foliage and seeming to dissapear completel.  Inside she finds a wide cavernous area with sandy floors and rough walls. Blood splatters the floor at seemingly random places. The path immediately ahead forks, in the sand it seems the tracks head off to the left.

Nadia gnaws on her bottom lip when her eyes meet the blood splattered on the cave grounds, but she pushes forward after a deep breath. With the tracks leading to the left, she decides to head right to scope it out more, hoping that if there was any trouble, it would be on the other side. She presses her back against the cave wall, and moves, keeping her eyes out for any traps had there been any...

Perception: 19 (if not perception, subtract 2 from the roll for investigation)

You move up about 30ft, keeping an eye out for traps along the way with your keen eyes that could never fail you. You see no indication of any traps are very confident that there are no traps to worry about. Focusing now on the path ahead, it seems you have 3 options. Continuing along the wall the path seems to split off to the right. Across the way the path seems to turn to the left. Or if you go straight ahead following the path, it looks like it might loop around to where you could have gone if you had followed the tracks at the entrance.

Nadia had begun to sneak about more confidentially now that she was sure there were absolutely no traps whatsoever in this totally NOT scary and menacing cave. Given the options, and deducing that had she kept going straight she would loop around, she opts to dart across the way, pressing her back against the wall again before peering into the area that lead left.

Perception: 16
Sneak (again if needed): 18

You run across stealthfully, narrowly avoiding nothing because there are no traps. Yup. Certainly not. 

With your back pressed up against the wall you peer down the path and see a small cavernous room. The room itself seems unremarkable except for a pale corpse laying against the back wall.

Nadia stops herself from going forward into the area to further inspect the corpse, her conscious reminding her... This is just a scout quick about, no looking further into things till you get back up, chica, just in case. The elf nods to herself, half considering moving forward ... but instead turns back to the entrance of the cave and give a run down of what she's seen so far to the boys.

"Okay, so," She begins, using the arrow she had taken out before to draw out a little crudely drawn map of what she's explored so far wet dirt. "The trail headed to the left, so I went right to scope out that area so far, cover our bases," She draws out the three directions she'd seen, then draws the alcove she managed to get a peek into. "There's a corpse here, but I didn't look too much into it since we're dealing with a lot of undead here. Can't trust any dead body... Anyways, this path looks to just loop around to... I guess the left area, and up here... Not sure, probably more dead bodies..." She shrugs a bit at her assumption. "But that's what I've seen so far and wanted to give you guys an update, let you guys know I'm alive... and your opinion. Want me to head left or keep checking out the right? ... Or you guys come with me, up to you. Won't say no to a little company."

When she had came back, Zack was looking a bit disgruntled by the rain, and as such, he had stepped just into the lip of the cave, to allow himself to dry off as much as was possible. But when she finally revealed herself and made her presence known, he smiled genuinely, despite the water dripping across his face from lingering moisture. Raising a silent hand in greeting until she got close enough, and he reluctantly moved to where the ground would be soft to use as an etch-a-sketch. Missed me that much huh? Just had to come back~ he says in what he hoped was a clearly teasing manner. Watching and listening as she spoke, while they used the rain as a muffler for noise, he kept his eye on the cave every few seconds... keeping an eye out for any movement, or ambush that might come while the group was distracted by it.

When she finished explaining it all, he rubbed his chin as he thought about what she had said. Well, if it were me and my platoon.. back when I was with them. And we assumed we were being pursued... And Nadaar DID say they had fled or he pursued etc etc .... The best tactic would be to mislead and ambush. We'd have our main force loop around and hide their tracks, while enough to remain convincing led them to an ambush point. And maybe I'm overthinking this, but I think the trail might be a trap.. so .. I say we go the opposite direction if possible... Assuming it didn't cut off already. 

And... we should probably 'deal' with that corpse... just in case. Last thing we need is if we do end up fighting, to have them coming at us from behind and pinning us in. Maybe it's just a dead body, or maybe its an undead waiting to be told to get up. Maybe I'm just being overly cautious... but better safe than surrounded.. 

If Nadaar could get away with staying seated just above the entry way, then he did so for the conversation. As far as the map went, he trusted his ears and eyes enough to not worry about missing a detail. "Best we have at least some form of Ward to the south in event they notice -- which between three of the four here -- we /will/ be noticed due to needing a light. Think you can do this for us, Rillex." Nadaar asked, giving the Tressym a sidelong look, or at least trying to. But such a feat was hard to do with a creature buried in the hood of his outer wear in a vain attempt to get out the rain.

To explain further, he gestures to track laden southern path. Close enough to the entryway that Rillex could zip back and/or yeowl to alert the others of an impending flee or reach around attack. "Hopefully there is nook in the area for you to mask yourself, my friend. But if your not up for it, I understand. I would not wish to put you in anymore harms way than necessary." Nadaar regards the others again once he had an answer. "Either way, your planning is sound enough. As tempting as it would be to ask Lady Nadia learn more about the general area before proceeding, there is a thin line between daring and foolish. And I would not ask anyone to willfully dance on the latter's side... Not an ally, at least." He gives a toothy smirk.

"So, unless your recently awakened awareness to the weave has granted the ability to manipulate light, Mr. Zack, I shall summon at least one friend to provide it." Nadaar added. Apart from which, he had his scimitar's out and ready for traversing the cave going forward.

Zack's comment earned him a light chuckle and an eye roll from the elf, easily picking up on the jest in his tone. "Oh, definitely, almost twice as much as you missed me~" Was her quick and cheeky reply before she got to drawing in the dirt and giving a short report. Her attention would be drawn to whoever had been speaking out their suggestion on what to do, nodding in understanding at the course of action they decided to take. 

"It's a solid plan, and with Rillex watching out for us then there shouldn't be much issue," She decides easily with a final nod. Nadia gives Nadaar a small smile when he refers to her as an ally. "Oh, trust me, I wanted to keep going, but I was afraid if something happened to me then..." Her words die in her throat, shaking her head at the thought. "Yeah. Any light will surely attract some attention, so be on guard. I take the lead." 

Had there been any additions/objections, she would respectfully listen, but had there not and everyone seemed to be ready to go, she would lead them back to the alcove where she had seen the corpse.

Zack wiped away a raindrop in a faux tear before they all settled down, finishing with a wink before his expression turned to the task at hand. He was ready. Looking to Nadaar he'd just say Light-wise, I'm fine. Casting it on his blade, so as to make it a viable source of light even during combat. He'd make sure he wasn't too far behind nadia.

Stealth: 14

Nadia leads you all to area 3 where she had seen the body. Zack and Nadaar can see the tracks leading south when they first enter with relative ease. They also dont fail to notice the random blood spatter throughout the cave. Keeping to the wall you all enter the alcove to take care of the body before moving forward. 

The body is not there.

As they move in, the water apparently making Zack even less stealthy than usual. The path so far remaining quiet. As the group moves forward to the nookish alcove, and they shift around the corner. Zack lifts his sword to help illuminate the area better as he looks around... Uh... Nadia? Isn't this where you said you found the body? he said in a shivering whisper, the cold winter rain finally soaking into his skin to the bones. He took another glance around the alcove before finally turning on heel, blade ready.... Well if it was here.. it's not now. And that means either it wasn't dead.. or something else retrieved it while you were gone.. And you weren't gone very long. Maybe five minutes..? Be ready for anything. But honestly... we should wait here for a minute. Our backs might be to a wall, but if they try to hoard us like before... we can bottleneck their advance, and take advantage of the cover in the corners...

Zack then readies Cleave should more than 2 enemies reveal themselves from the 'runnel' of the alcove  AND the N's agree to his strategy. If not.. he instead readies Blue Flame Blade should any enemy appear.