Someone is killing young women in Windhelm, and the guards, busy with the war, have mostly given up. Blood on the Ice turns the Dragonborn into a detective in the capital of Eastmarch, following witnesses, a blood trail and a hidden shrine to unmask the killer the city calls the Butcher. Choose your suspect carefully: an early wrong accusation lets the murderer strike again.
How to start
- Enter Windhelm at night, between 7 PM and 7 AM. In the graveyard you find a guard and some onlookers around the body of Susanna the Wicked, a barmaid from Candlehearth Hall.
- Talk to the guard, ask what happened and offer to help. Susanna is the third victim: always a young woman, killed at night, the body torn apart.
Walkthrough
1. Question the witnesses
Speak to the three bystanders. Calixto Corrium thinks he saw a man running off. Silda the Unseen heard a scream but arrived too late. Helgird points out that the coin purse was untouched, so robbery was not the motive. Report back to the guard, who tells you that you need the steward’s approval before you can investigate officially.
2. Get permission from Jorleif
Find Jorleif, the steward, in the Palace of the Kings and offer your help. He agrees and orders the guards to assist you. From now on you can ask him and the guards for hints whenever you are stuck. You may investigate without his blessing, but then you get no hints. Back at the graveyard, the guard mentions a blood trail and tells you Helgird has taken the body to the Hall of the Dead.
3. The autopsy (optional)
In the Hall of the Dead, Helgird, after some morbid joking, reveals that the wounds were made by curved blades of the kind ancient Nords used for embalming. She denies any involvement, reasonably asking why the killer would point you at the weapon. The killer must own similar tools.
4. Follow the blood trail to Hjerim
The trail runs from the cemetery up to Hjerim, a house in the upper residential quarter that once belonged to Friga Shatter-Shield, an earlier victim. The door has a Master lock. Pick it, or get the key from her mother, Tova Shatter-Shield, either by pickpocketing or by talking her into it: claim authority, appeal to her wish for justice or ask her bluntly whether she wants her daughter’s killer found. Then ask for the key.
5. Search Hjerim
The house looks abandoned, but clues show someone has been here recently: a chest pushed against a wall, a chair stacked oddly on the bed, a wardrobe nailed to the wall. Key finds:
- The bloodstained chest left of the entrance holds the first Butcher journal.
- In the north-west room, a small shelf holds a pile of Viola Giordano’s Beware the Butcher! fliers. Hidden underneath is the Strange Amulet, a jade skull carving.
- The right-hand wardrobe in that room has a false back. Behind it is a secret room with a necromantic altar, grisly remains and the second Butcher journal.
6. Viola Giordano (alternative route)
If you skip the secret room, talk to Viola Giordano, who has been chasing the Butcher for months. Show her a flier found in Hjerim and she joins you there, spots the strange wardrobe and has you open it. After reading the journal, she concludes that the court wizard, Wuunferth the Unliving, has been experimenting, and urges you to go to the steward instead of facing him. Showing her the second journal after finding it yourself has the same result.
7. Appraise the Strange Amulet
A guard will direct you to Calixto at his House of Curiosities. He identifies the amulet as the Wheelstone, a ceremonial heirloom of the court mage, and offers 500 gold for it. Sell it to him. If you keep it, it stays stuck in your inventory, and you can never obtain the real Necromancer’s Amulet.
8. Accuse, or ask?
This is the key decision (see below). Accusing Wuunferth through Jorleif gets the wizard jailed in the Bloodworks, and three days later a new body appears outside Candlehearth Hall. Visit Wuunferth in his cell; he denies everything, points out that the College of Winterhold has banned necromancy for centuries and identifies the amulet as the legendary Necromancer’s Amulet. Talking to Wuunferth directly gives the same information without the false arrest. Either way, he predicts the next murder for the following night in the Stone Quarter.
9. Catch the Butcher
Wait in the market in the south-west Stone Quarter at night. Calixto stands there without talking to anyone. Soon a woman walks by: Arivanya if Wuunferth was never accused, otherwise possibly Nilsine Shatter-Shield, Jora, Hermir Strong-Heart or Idesa Sadri. Calixto draws a knife and closes in. The guards do nothing, but you can attack him at any point without getting a bounty, even before he draws the blade. If he kills her, he flees to the secret room in Hjerim, where he fights you to the death. He cannot be taken alive.
10. Report to Jorleif
Tell Jorleif that Calixto was the Butcher. He is shocked, releases Wuunferth if he was jailed, and promises that the guards will treat you more kindly.
Choices and consequences
- Accuse Wuunferth via Jorleif: an innocent man goes to jail, another woman dies, and the quest continues as the second part where you must exonerate him.
- Talk to Wuunferth first: no false arrest, no extra victim, and Arivanya is the targeted woman. This is the cleaner path.
- Selling the amulet: required to get the Necromancer’s Amulet from Calixto’s body later.
Rewards
- Necromancer’s Amulet (taken from Calixto’s body, if you sold him the Strange Amulet)
- 500 gold for the Strange Amulet
- The option to buy and furnish the house Hjerim from Jorleif
- Calixto’s key, which opens a chest upstairs in his house containing ancient Nord embalming tools and his last journal
Tips and notes
- Save often and finish quickly. The quest is known to break, sometimes permanently, which can lock you out of Hjerim.
- Hjerim is reliably purchasable only while the Stormcloaks control Windhelm. The source is not fully consistent about Legion-held Windhelm, so finishing the quest before the Civil War changes the city’s ruler is the safe choice. The source also ties the purchase to not having Wuunferth arrested, another reason to talk to him directly.
- Calixto’s journal reveals his motive: he was gathering body parts to bring back his dead sister, Lucilla.
- If you keep the Strange Amulet instead of selling it, Calixto may send hired thugs after you.
- A well-known trick: sell the amulet to Calixto, pickpocket it back and sell it again for another 500 gold. It only works the day you first enter his shop, which locks with an Expert lock afterwards.
