You Can’t Miss Him

The metal was his own armor. Thorim told me that himself before he sent me down the mountain.

“Long ago cast off in a fit of grief and left to the elements. Only the sons of Hodir are capable of its reforging, for they are its original creators. Perhaps you’ve done enough to soften their hatred of me. Seek out their king, Jokkum, if he still breathes. Find your way into his good graces and plead for his assistance.”

So he had thrown it away. Grief had him stripping off his own plate and leaving it out in the snow, and long enough that Loken’s smiths found it.

Jokkum heard all of that and then considered it.

“So it is you we have to thank for Fjorn’s demise?” he said. “While it’s true that you have aided us in our time of need, there is still much that must be done to repair our relations with Thorim.”

He did not say how much.

“For now, I shall allow Njormeld to reforge the armor we gifted to the Stormlord so many ages ago. Consider it payment for your assistance against Fjorn. Njormeld was sent to recover Fjorn’s anvil. You should find him there.”

Njormeld was where the king said he would be, going over the anvil I had killed Fjorn beside.

“Reforging Thorim’s armor? It can be done.” He did not look up from it. “First though, there’s the matter of the anvil…”

Njormeld agreed to reforge the armor and then raised the matter of the anvil, which was still standing in a valley full of fire elementals, so the smith needed someone Battling the Elements.