Bryan

This all started with a connection between the events of the Golden Dream and insects stuck in amber for thousands of years (the beloved golden sky that appears when the golden gem is formed also looks like cracked amber, finally freeing something that was vaulted for a good reason). Thus, the first frame was born, S3 Mugm and Wyll staring into the eyes of S2 Mugm and Wyll.

There is something utterly fascinating about creatures so well preserved you expect them to fly. They look alive to a point you almost wish they were unaffected by the predicament you found them in. But you are thousands of years too late to save them. (cough cough isn't that familiar)

Then, the poem emerged, and with it – a desire to make it a 4-piece series. Amber is a very funny stone because it comes from something alive that just froze one day, and therefore is not a traditional Gem. Other gem-wannabe stones that were once living also include fossils, (dead) corals and pearls. All illustrations besides the last include them, circling back on P32's idea that this server corrupts people, in this case through a desire of the living to become a gem. They never fully succeed but they die trying.

Second page is Silva finding true bliss with Q; it is the escape from the stone, from the system that turns you into one. However, it is the only page that is fully contained within the black border. Also, if we imagine Silva getting out of that cave and escaping the ever-surrounding stone, we can see that there are still stone pillars towering above the cherry trees.

Dol9hin and Stormz find their bliss amidst a typhoon. Well, try to. The coral reef is dead, there are eels everywhere, and the only pearl they can get is still stuck inside a dead mollusk. (there is more to this one but thats a story for another day)

Finally, the last piece, one that is not bound to any stone. It is actually fully about trying to break it. Here, in the middle of a massive battle, while everyone is blinded by the sun and the desire to win and to gain something, a humble raccoon casts a shadow on one of the soldiers, freeing him from the heat. A shadow that has no "real" influence on this world somehow makes a knight reconsider his ways, offering him the ability to see how blind everyone else is, both in the setting of the illustration and metaphorically.