I recently noticed a fluid pool under the bike and at first thought it was a crankcase leak somewhere but despite all my searching I could not find an oil leak.  When putting the back back up I noticed that it was localized to the rear of the bike and after some further looking I noticed the left rear shock shaft was dirty and looking a little gummy.  So it looks like the shock has given up the ghost and needs to be rebuilt.  For now I am going to have to settle on trying to find a cheap stocker to replace it with until I can gather the cash needed to send them off for rebuilding.