The problem, to be clear, is not the dragon knight going away. That should be a given if the encounter must have any chance of survival.
The problem is that the framing of the scene is a bit weak and the reason he gives to leave us to his underlings contrasts pretty strongly with how urgent his mission seems to be.
If he decided to dispatch us WITHOUT coming to the conclusion that we have exactly what he's looking for it would make a lot more sense.
He seems to imply that he's not killing us with his own hands (and dragon) because "his mandate binds him" or something along that line, which is a bit vague and not explained very well. Maybe as a knight he has some sort of oath of never killing "children" of his tribe? If that's the case, this could be made a bit more obvious?
P.S. On a side note, I freaking love the actor voicing the dragon knight. His voice, his tone of contempt speaking to Lae'zel, the way he scolds his underlings for fooling around too much without results, etc.
Everything about his delivery is perfect for the role.
Wish I could have the same praise for the model and animation, though.
Wouldn't an easy solution then be to have a triggered animation when you approach them where the camera zooms in on the patrol and you hear the dragon dude say something to the effect of "ok my underlings, I have urgent stuff to attend to, you just make sure you get that item and leave no one alive" to which he flies away on his dragon on a killer Judas Priest's guitar riff. No jokes aside, they should rewrite this to make it clear you have little to no chance if you are under leveled for the encounter. Just a companion whispering is too easily overlooked IMO, just a new triggered cinematic when you approach them BEFORE IT'S too late would be better.
