A movie for the mind's eye. This is a screenplay.
A little background: The character of King Ashthera, with his dog, and his gambling streak, is derived from King Yudhisthira in the Mahabharata, the wonderful and interminable epic of India. When, towards the end of the story, Yudhisthira gets to Heaven, he is outraged to find some of his enemies are there, and some of his friends are not; and he decides not to enter Heaven at all unless they let his dog in with him. I stole all that.
The theme of figuring out what one' s duty is and how to follow it is from the Mahabharata too. The rest is my invention. Yudhisthira's dog's name is Dharma, but Ashthera's dog is just Dog.