# Crystal Lattice v3a — Cold Lattice (faithful: cold sparse ambiance)

`crystal-lattice-v3a` — levels: `calm.mp3` · `activity1.mp3` · `activity2.mp3` · `danger1.mp3` · `danger2.mp3`

Take A is the FAITHFUL reading of Cold Lattice (crystal caverns) — the most direct, polished realization of the row's style and the §4.2 design notes. C# minor pentatonic (C# E F# G# B), 60 BPM, sparse:true, fully diatonic — no chromaticism; the cold here is SPACE and indifference, not menace (beauty older than life, lit for nobody). Style = cold sparse ambiance: the calm bed (ch0-3) is widely-spaced pentatonic pad DYADS — open fifths sprayed across registers so the GAP between the voices renders the lattice gap — with long silences, a single caveCelesta tone per bar struck and left to decay fully, and one near-static low darkDrone holding the 'lattice hum' (its old paired-drone Depth bed is RETIRED — folded in as one quiet PITCHED drone, never a noise bed). The interpretation's subject is a SYMMETRICAL melody: the same C#m-pentatonic contour up then mirrored back down (lattice repetition), so this take quotes no shared motif (§7.7 — a humane motif would warm what must stay indifferent). Activity L1 (ch4-5) = that symmetrical celesta melody (ascent, apex/turn, then the exact mirror descent across the three activity patterns) plus one soft-pluck echo trail. Activity L2 (ch6-7) ADDS NEW material, not volume: a LOW pentatonic counter-line in contrary motion (it descends while the lead ascends and rises while the lead falls — the lattice answering itself in mirror) AND a sparse glassBell facet-arp picking out the dyad tones like facets catching light. Danger is thin crystal floors over drops, rendered abstractly per correction 2 and kept mostly SMALL sounds (what makes it work): danger L1 (ch8-9) is unease/the approach — sparse glassy crack-ticks (thin-floor stress) over a darkening low drone with one far deep boom per phrase, real material, not near-silence. Danger L2 (ch10-11) is a GENUINE intensity jump for active fight/flee — the crack-ticks crowd into a driving, accelerating glassy run, a low kick pulse drives the chase underneath, and the deep booms land harder and more often as panes give way. That is new rhythmic material and higher density, NOT danger1 with the fader up. Dread is abstract throughout — register, density, the glassy rhythm tightening — never chromatic darkening and never a literal foley of shattering glass or a collapsing floor (those belong to the game's SFX + ambient soundscape).
