Skyrim player reaches Yngvild's cave for the first time in 14 years and is appalled by the local necromancer's vileness – now he wants more content like this in The Elder Scrolls 6
The scariest stories in RPGs often hide in optional caves that are easy to walk past. World-eaters and Daedric Princes scare with sheer scale. What really makes you recoil from the screen is a small journal on a table, which you read out of curiosity between two loot chests.
In The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim, that place is Yngvild. It is a Nordic ruin on an island in the Sea of Ghosts, north of Dawnstar. One player reached it for the first time 14 years after release and said the dungeon turned out to be even more disgusting than the infamous Frostflow Lighthouse. Then came a request for Bethesda to put more of this kind of darkness into The Elder Scrolls 6.
An Altmer necromancer named Arondil has settled in the ruin. His journals reveal piece by piece what he was up to. He killed women, raised them as ghostly servants, and kept them by his side. The game shows nothing directly, but the wording in the notes leaves little to the imagination. His battle line depends on the gender of the player character. A male hero hears "What? An intruder? Attack, my lovelies!", while a female hero gets this:
Ah, another plaything for my collection.
That line made the player pause the game, since they suddenly remembered their Dragonborn is a woman. Many veterans say they rush to Yngvild at the start of every new playthrough to deal with Arondil. One commenter compared his crimes to the depravity of Molag Bal and wished the necromancer a spot in the worst corners of Coldharbour.
For a game that usually steers clear of explicit cruelty, a story like this in a side dungeon comes as a shock. Meridia's Beacon also likes to show up in the necromancer lair. Meridia is a Daedric Princess who despises the undead, and the coincidence looks almost like a taunt.
The dungeon also has a fitting payoff that many players miss. A soul gem sits on a pedestal next to Arondil and binds the ghosts to him. If the gem is picked up unnoticed, the ghost standing nearby attacks its tormentor, and all the necromancer can do is cry out "What's happening? No! Leave me alone!" Knocking the gem off with an arrow won't work, since that only alerts the couple to the player. Staying hidden is the key, and a high Sneak skill or an invisibility potion comes in handy here.
Some players trap Arondil in a black soul gem and use it to enchant a fork, while others raise the necromancer from the dead just to kill him again. A few pages of his journal were enough to make him a villain, but ten playthroughs aren't enough for players to settle the score.
