Kelnin crosses the Avwan.

The transformation into a Gray Elf is a continuous process.  First, you're given slightly dull skin and darker hair, which get duller and darker as time goes on, until they are gray and jet black.  Secondly, you loose the sharp elfin sight, hearing,  and smell.  Lastly, the touch of Caswen, the ability to see and feel the life of animals, and plants, and command it, diminishes until you can only feel the life of a useless shrub and dying desert lizard.  The only atonement is to get a blessing from a high priest, and to walk the Path of the Hiryali.

Kelnin grabbed the edge, and hauled himself up onto the cliff's top.  He rested there a moment, and drank some water, even though he started out with one day's worth, he had found a mountain stream part way up.  He had been climbing the Avwan Mountains for several days now, he did not care to keep count, and had had his first meal of meat, which Wood Elves do not eat meat.  Kelnin got up and continued on his way, toward the peak of the mountain he was on.  Some hours later, Kelnin reached the frozen mountain peak, so high up he had trouble breathing, he looked around but could already tell his vision wasn't as sharp as it had been.  Kelnin breathed on his hands to warm them, he was nearly frozen.  He yelled a curse into the night, the night responded with a flurry of snow, he fell down into the snow and, slowly, his eyes closed.

When Kelnin woke, he was in a stretcher of some kind, and in a dark tunnel.  He could not see who were carrying the stretcher on which he lay, they blended in with the shadows.  But then one turned to him, and Kelnin could see pointed ears, and glowing red eyes.