The carriage rattled in a soft rhythm on the dirt road and Mr. Irving felt like a baby being cradled. It made him sleepy.

Mr. Irving was grateful that Toxadrun was relaxing too. Instead of pulling all kinds of madness, Mr. Irving's demi-god companion only possessed one of the horses leading the carriage and walked quietly.

"Excuse me, kind sir. How long do you think is the trip to the dungeons?" Mr. Irving asked the elderly man who was, at the moment, tying shoe laces of his very curious grandson.

"Why, Why?" the kid asked. His legs were swinging wildly which made the shoe-lacing operation impossible.

The old man sighed: "I am sorry, mister. He is in the 'keep saying why' stage of his life, the little philosopher. But back to your question," his brows furrowed, "if I remember correctly, it is around ten tiles to the dungeons, and one tile usually takes three turns by carriage, so...ehm...slightly under four rounds," the man smiled politely.

Mr. Irving bowed his head in appreciation: "Thank you." For nothing, he added in his mind. Mr. Irving was frustrated that he would need to calculate the time manually somehow since he had no idea how many hours or seconds is one round.

"Pexend!" the kid shouted his lungs out. The grandpa cursed softly and looked angrily at his grandson: "Yes, that's where we are disembarking. But we are not there yet. Now be quiet Otto."

The carriage stopped.

"Short break, short break! Stretch your legs and pee!" the coachman bellowed from the front.

The grandpa patted little Otto on the shoulder: "Come, come, you need to pee."

Little Otto shook his head: "I don't wanna wee wee! I will sit here."

"Otto, don't be silly, come on. You drank a pint of milk already, I know you and I know you want to pee very badly now," the old man begged the kid. But Otto was not having it, and cried: "No, no, no wee!" he started to twist around and his face was red.

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"Alright, Otto, I get it," the grandpa said nicely. "You just don't want to go outside, am I right? Should I pour out the milk from the bottle so you can pee in it here?"

Otto was quiet for a few seconds, then he slowly nodded.

"A ha!" his grandpa exclaimed. "I knew it, you little devil!" The old man took Otto by hand and dragged him outside of the carriage, yelling at him the whole time.

"What a little bastard, right?" said a voice coming from a horse that peeked under the carriage curtain.

"I see nothing escapes you, Tox," Mr. Irving pushed the horse's head back out and went to stretch his bones.

Mr. Irving looked at the countryside and saw clearly the hexagonal tiles in the distance. Some of them were full of trees, others were lakes, and then, far away...

Mr. Irving gasped. A giant stone cube, touching the clouds. It had three evenly distributed dots in a diagonal line on one side, and five dots on one of the other sides.

"Aah, behold, the Dice monument. Majestic isn't it? And did you know that after each round, there are different numbers on the sides? But no more than six! Many believe the gods themselves dwell inside it!" the burly coachman played the tour guide part as he fed the horse possessed by Toxadrun a carrot.

Mr. Irving said in disbelief: "So it is a hex world and a board game world, well that's..."

"What is it?" the coachman asked and cleaned his ear with a finger.

Mr. Irving quickly composed himself: "It is majestic indeed. And I didn't know the numbers change, how intriguing and mysterious!"

The coachman nodded in satisfaction and started to pour details into Mr. Irving.

While Mr. Irving pretended to listen to the coachman, he watched little Otto finally peeing in tall grass. A black crow was standing next to him. Suddenly, little Otto yelled something at the crow and ran straight into the carriage.

Otto did not say a single word for the rest of their trip to Pexend, his eyes wide as if he saw a ghost. When Otto and his grandpa were disembarking at the coastal city, the old man looked sincerely happy and younger.

As soon as the carriage started to rattle toward the dungeons, Mr. Irving asked the crow that was now sitting in front of him: "What did you do to that kid, Tox?"

The crow cawed happily: "Nothing serious Warner, don't you worry..I only told him the truth."

"What truth?" Mr. Irving demanded.

"The truth that his existence is part of a game that some superior beings are playing purely for their own joy. That his world is a world inside another one, and that at some point, games finish, and at that moment, the gods will throw the tiles from the table..that such a moment can occur anytime, perhaps in his next heartbeat or in the one following that," Toxadrun clapped his beak wickedly.

Mr. Irving rubbed his face, then he shooed the crow away from the carriage.