As you head out in the morning the sky is clear, with only a few puffy clouds passing overhead.  You head on down the road, following it through the Greenfields as you head onward.

A few hours into the morning Toc's hawk comes spiraling down, landing on grass not far ahead.  Once it is within 100 feet of Toc it relays that a big flying creature is heading your way.

A few moments later the flapping of wings can be heard, Taviel would recognize it instantly as the same sound she heard the previous night.  Soon the shape of a dragon is visible as it circles overhead.  it stays far enough up that it seems to be watching you.  After a bit though it passes onward, eventually swooping out of sight and landing in the far-off distance.

Toc abruptly returns his hawk to its magical place...and turns his horse towards where the golden dragon went down, clucking gently to his horse he leads the way. 

What is everyone else doing as Toc turns his horse off the path and across the grassy hills?

Germain will follow, but hang back with the pack horse letting the others head out first.

Toc, please give me a survival check to navigate the grasslands off the road to the place you saw the dragon go down, if that is where you are headed.

"Cute!" commented Taviel Toc's familiar. This morning she loved the whole world and should someone summon an imp she would find him cute as well. "We had a visitor last night," she made a a dramatic pause and announced: "the Golden Dragon!" "I am sure I was not mistaken, though still have a feeling it could be a dream. A golden Dragon, right here, under everyone noses - and mages just... ignore it? They hide well, of course, but still..."

During the breakfast and early on the road the party had to endure a lecture about the ways to tell a Golden Dragon from, say, Bronze one by the shape of the wings and horns, placement of the "barbels" and "whiskers" - neither is the true barbels or whiskers, of course) and supposed etiquette when dealing with one (supposed, because there were not that many mortals able to writhe the things down).

When the dragon truly appeared the second time and for everyone to see this time, she turned to the direction of his landing may be faster than Toc, and definitely kept up with him.

The group leaves the well-traveled road and starts out, cross-country, towards where they saw the dragon land.  It takes a bit of time to cross the rolling hills of the Greenfield, as there are things such as ravines, that need to be traversed.  When you arrive near the place you believe you saw the dragon land, you find a depression in the grassland that could not be spotted from further away.  There is no sign of the dragon though.

Taviel clicked her tong in disappointment "already transformed!", spurred the horse to run deeper in the opening and looked around in search of any creature standing out in this grassland.

Germain will wait where he is at the edge, "Is there a reason we're chasing a dragon? What do we plan to do if we catch it?"

((One does not catch the dragon - the dragon catches you! :) ))

"You mean "catch with the dragon"," corrected Taviel not allowing even a thought that Germain meant real capturing. "We talk, if he or she would agreed to it. Golden dragon - the strongest noblest creature there is, right in the middle of that dragon-related craziness. If anyone knows what is going on and what to do - it's them, Golden dragons."

(Need to do a slight change for the dragon, it is adult, not young.  Young golds cannot shapechange.  Doesn't change anything that has happened, or will happen, just a flavoring I wanted to make sure to call out the change prior to making it, so you don't think there are two gold dragons about.)

Looking around Taviel does not see any figure across the hilly grassland.  You would know that, like the depression you are currently standing in, it would be quite easy to not be seen in the area.

Naroth will dismount from his horse and take a look around the general area to see if he sees anything of note.

Survival: 11

You spot where the dragon clearly landed, deep claw marks in the soft earth.  There are multiple other tracks around the area though, so there is no way to tell which is the creature it likely changed its form into.

Toc frowns, "Why would such a beast make an obvious display of it's presence to us, and then run off? This is highly peculiar behavior, and it would seem a waste of our time. Unless we are being distracted by visions and magic."  He summons his hawk once more.  "Go scout for us as we head back to the road." 

"Shall we continue to the road and on our way?"   He turns his horse back towards the road. 

Naroth climbs back up on his horse, "Might as well, if it wants to talk to us, it will make its presence known."

You make your way back to the road once again.  Keeping a steady pace you make good time as you travel.  After a while you spot a single traveler walking along the road ahead, heading in your direction.  There have been other travelers throughout the day, so this is not out of the ordinary.  As he grows closer you see it is an elderly man, using a gnarled staff as a walking stick.

"Good day travelers."  The old man says as he walks the last bit of distance separating you.  You saw him from some distance off, so it took some time for him to approach.  The hawk would have also warned of his approach, long before you even saw him, so his approach was slow and well-announced.

Toc clucks for his horse to stop, and nods to the man, "Good day sir. I hope you are having a safe and fruitful journey."

Taviel's excitement died out like a fire under rain and for a while she was just a raiding manifestation of disappointment. Eventually, incapable to sulk for too long, she lightened up again, finding another way to track her elusive dragon. "Toc," she rode closer and watched the only familiar in the group taking to the air, "can you make you familiar to trun into something with a good sense of smell? You see, Golden Dragons have this peculiar quality - the scent of saffron or incense even when they are transformed. Neither Nissa nor Vilrana can track the smell, or even if they can, they can not tell about it. Your familiar can? Probably? Please?"

It was an obsession, she knew it, with a bad timing to manifest, but she wanted to find that dragon. A stranger on the road at first did not interest her (wrong direction) but ... you never can tell the dragon. She stopped her horse too.

Toc looks to Taviel, "I can turn my familiar into either a cat or a weasel, both of which have keen senses of smell. However, Taviel, if this gold dragon wanted to be found, it would have just landed near us. Instead it specifically flew to another place to transform. It has no interest in interacting with us, and frankly, we don't really have time to go hunting all over for it."

"Plus, we have already traveled back and forth from it's spot.  Even turning my Hawk into a weasel just in case seems a waste. It costs 100 gold each time I transform it, plus an hour of spell casting time, and a Hawk as a scout while we're traveling over land across open territory is very valuable.  I'm sorry, it just doesn't make much sense to me.  I know you have kinship with dragons, but....we can't go chasing after every dragon that crosses our path."

He turns from her and continues his horse plodding along. 

"Spoiled sport!" It was said quietly and not without pouting, but said nevertheless. As right as he was it did not change her feelings a bit - and it did not seem like you had to chase after dragons around here, the place was practically littered with them. Though the thought that specifically Golden dragon was avoiding them did not sit well with Taviel.