Deciding to just start slashing, Lef makes his way into the ruins.
After a few minutes, Lef finds an opening into the ruins of the castle; he can see two gnolls guarding the entrance and what appears to be a water source for the gnolls. From the bushes, Lef leaps out, immediately taking out one guard. As the second gnoll is turning to see what happened, Lef quickly descends from the air and strikes the other guard. With the two guards motionless, Lef turns to inspect the pool of water they are guarding.
Lef wipes more sweat as he looks at the water, it looks like potable drinking water - not a latrine. Lef gets a bit closer to smell the water and tries to recoil after realizing how pungent and "musky" the water smells. As he pulls his head back, he feels bristly resistance as one of the two guards was still alive, and is now trying to drown Lef in the water!
Lef is caught offguard and is shoved face-first into the water. Lef holds his breath as he struggles with the gnoll, it's clear the guard is wounded and he hasn't called for help yet. Thinking quickly, Lef turns the tables on the guard and dispatches him. Gasping for air and choking back some of the vile water he swallowed, Lef reaches for his rucksack, only to find his hands were now swollen to twice their size, and appeared to have pawpads forming on them. His hands quickly began to look like the clawed paws of the gnoll guards slumped down beside him. The fur from Lef's new paws was quickly spreading down his arms as a strange feeling of sluggish numbness was passing down his arms as well. Lef was sweating uncontrollably from the humidity and nervousness of the situation as the smells of the gnoll camp and his own panic started to get to him.
Lef began to pant as he felt out of breath, he had to act quickly to try and stop whatever was affecting him...