Nathanael leaves the witche's shack, preparing to make his way to the Pillar of Skulls.
As soon as he's a few yards away from the hut, Hexla the Mad shouts after him:
"Don't forget where you are, Prime. There is no one to be trusted in the Nine Hells, mark my words."
A maniacal laughter follows shortly after. Looks like her personality fits her name after all.
Shaking of the uneasy feeling, the wizard steps out of the mountain cave and walks towards his next destinition. The right path is not hard to find but walking it turn out to be far from convenient. The sharp, bloodied rocks pierce through the soles of Nathanael's shoes. All too often the young man has to cower behind debris or jagged crags to stay out of sight of passing fiends and soon his body is covered in bruises.
The fiery explosions in the distance only add to the feeling of impending doom.
Nevertheless the witches directions were quite accurate and after a few hours of hardship a tall pillar rises before Nathanael.
The Pillar of Skulls is huge, towering almost a hundreth feet into the sky and as Nathanael draws closer he hears the sound of many voices, argueing and bickering among themselves. Soon the voices rise into a cacaphony of sound in the still air of the surrounding hills.
As it turns out, the pillar is not exactly made of skulls. Instead, it is a pile of the living heads of humand, dwarves, elves, and other beings not so easily identifiable. The heads, in various states of decay and decomposition, are little mor than bone-boxes with no more trace of their former bodies. Yet some of them remain silent, keeping a watch over the surroundings, while others stay quiet only because they're missing pieces of their jaws or tongues.
It looks as though the Pillar of Skulls extends into the ground, with half buried heads still trying to talk, despite the earth filling their mouths.
Nathanael stands now in front of the pillar, only a few feet away from the monstrosities that live inside. Some of the heads have taken notice of him, eyeing him with suspicion, but overall the pillar seems to ignore him.