Before writing the script, Annan still had to deal with the trouble left by the jailbreak.
First came the investigation. When Astolfo woke, she said the elves had tricked her into opening the cells. The other Foreign Races who had chosen to stay also said the elves had opened every cell.
Then there were the escapees. They had done little damage to the Dungeon itself; the guards had run quickly enough—a few Silver Coins a week were hardly worth dying for. But once outside, the escapees had caused some chaos in the city. Some were captured, some were executed, and some vanished without a trace.
Finally, there was the reaction of Betar City's upper crust. Apart from the former Deputy Warden whose position Annan had taken, who made a fuss everywhere, the nobles acted as though nothing had happened. Banquets went on, and so did their extravagance. Whether they laughed at him in private did not matter. Annan's superiors and colleagues—the Warden and the two other Deputy Wardens—merely asked a few questions and encouraged him not to lose heart.
Perhaps Annan was the only one this incident had brought down.
"It's no surprise those arrogant elves did something like this..." Late that night, when Annan returned to the Official Residence after finishing his work, the Bard tried to comfort him. "I'm not blaming you. But every one of those elves has lived for hundreds of years at least. Their ideas, their view of the world—they've long since become fixed. You couldn't change their minds in a few days."
On the bright side, sixty-four people of the Foreign Races had stayed. They could have joined the jailbreak, but they had stood firmly with Annan instead. They were the best candidates to settle in Star-Moon Bay one day.
Annan suddenly stopped walking.