The woods might not be recognisable as anywhere in particular, but they seem to be fairly normal woods with nothing exceptional about them. They have familiar-looking trees and so on. Nothing immediately accosts him as he wanders aimlessly through them. 

Up ahead, the trees thin out, and—oop, here's a cliff edge. Better not blindly walk off it. 

Elan stops and takes in the view! Fall damage is no laughing matter.

Looking out over the cliff, most of what he can see is...more trees. Seems like it's a pretty big forest. Away in the distance is a city, with some mountains beyond it, but it's pretty far away. Probably not plot-relevant just yet. 

As he's standing there heroically on a dramatic clifftop, a red dragon swoops into view.

It...looks like it's headed directly for him.

That might be more immediately plot-relevant. 

Yeah! And scary!

He almost turns to run back into the forest, but his dramatic instincts stop him. This doesn't feel like the beginning of a chase scene; if he was supposed to run he'd probably have heard distant rumblings or breaking branches right when he woke up. And it would be a pretty pointless story if the dragon just ate him five minutes after he showed up.

He's still pretty scared.

It gets closer...and closer...

...and there's someone on its back?

It doesn't seem to be interested in Elan at all, instead landing at the bottom of the cliff, which is conveniently exactly the right height for the rider on its back to just walk off onto the clifftop where Elan's standing. 

The rider is a woman in a hooded white robe. In her arms, she clutches an ornate black chest, carrying it as though the contents are both precious and breakable. 

Now that they're closer, Elan can see that she's accompanied by a small red creature with large ears, about the size of a human baby, or a small dog standing on its hind legs. They move with the confidence of an adult, and surprising speed, as they disembark.

"Hiyas!" they say brightly to Elan in a high-pitched voice. Turning to their companion, they call back to her, "The path is clear, Priestess!" 

1. That dragon is really big.
2. That creature is really cute!!!

"Oh my gosh, hiiii!"

The—priestess, apparently—joins the little red creature on solid ground, walking slowly and carefully to avoid jostling the chest she's carrying. 

"Please do pardon us, friend," she says, giving Elan an elegant nod. "We are merely passing through." 

"Where are you passing through to?"

Yeah, Elan's gonna tag along with the cleric and her sidekick.

"We're taking the Black Dragon Box to—"

"Twilly," she interrupts softly. 

"—um, I mean, nowhere! We are just going for a lovely walk in the woods. With a box that is definitely not the Black Dragon Box." 

"Sorry Priestess." 

"Oh, definitely! What's the Black Dragon Box? Since it's absolutely somewhere else right now, probably someplace super safe that nobody has to worry about."

As the priestess visibly casts about for Literally Anything Else to talk about, sounds of rustling leaves and snapping branches come from the undergrowth up ahead, getting closer. Something big is crashing through the trees towards them! 

"Oh my! Whatever could that be?" (Oh, good, a distraction!) 

"Probably the chase scene from earlier! We should probably escape on that red dragon you came in on!"

Elan turns around to head back towards the cliff.

Yeah no the red dragon is long gone. It's visible as a receding speck in the distance. Or maybe that's a pigeon. 

Behind Elan, the crashing noises get louder. 

"Oh noes! A gorillaphant! Don't worry, Priestess, I'll protect you!" 

A few seconds later, there's a loud POW! and Twilly goes sailing through the air. He lands in a heap on the ground next to Elan. 

"Owww..." 

Elan leans down.

"Oh no, do you need healing?"

Maybe that should wait until he deals with this gorilla-elephant and makes sure it doesn't smash the Black Dragon Box into pieces. But Twilly is the one who's in front of him right now.

"Oh, no, Twillies got it!" 

Twilly waves his stick, which summons a floating circle of glowy green runes around his head for a second. Then he bounces back to his feet, good as new. 

"RAAAGH!"

A gorillaphant apparently looks rather like an oversized grey gorilla, with the tusks and ears of an elephant. It seems to be enraged.  

Well shoot! Elan considers his options.

He decides to try Diplomacy first. He doesn't have any ranks in Handle Animal, but he can wave his arms to get its attention.

"Hey, big guy! Over here, yeah?"

It swings its head away from the priestess and towards Elan, beady eyes focusing on him.

"...Raaargh?" 

"Yeah, that's right. What's the matter, buddy?"

He really hopes it can understand his speech, even if it can't talk back. Which maybe it can; he's never seen one of these before but you never know.

It huffs and paws the ground, lowering its head ready to charge. 

If Elan is looking closely, though...there's a broken-off arrowhead stuck in its hind leg, and a trickle of blood running down.