# Rift Descent v3b — The Descending Ground (grave house passacaglia)

`rift-descent-v3b` — levels: `calm.mp3` · `activity1.mp3` · `activity2.mp3` · `danger1.mp3` · `danger2.mp3`

Take B is the BOLDER reading of rift-descent's grave-house brief: it commits to ONE structural idea and pushes it all the way — the descending bass becomes a GROUND BASS / passacaglia. An eight-bar chaconne steps the subBass down the whole E-aeolian scale, one diatonic degree per bar (E D C B A G F# E), and turns over; the four calm patterns are exactly one full revolution, so the descent is literally the bed's form. Static open-fifth softPads hang above it as motionless rock walls — they barely move while the ground sinks past. EVERYTHING in the take falls: the lead is invert(TREAD) (the patient walk turned downward — 'the benchmark's rise, reversed', per the motif note), the L2 counter is a slow descant that also descends, and even the danger figures slide down; echoes never lift octaves (octaveProb 0) because nothing in this piece rises. House voice in a grave register; struckPiano tone WARMEST tolls the bar roots (dark and grave fits a mile-down committed descent better than warm/bright), deepBoom is the chasm's weight as a STRUCK one-shot at each turn-over (the §4 'updraft' noise bed is RETIRED per correction 3 — no continuous rush). Layering: calm (ch0-3) is the ground + static walls + boom settle, complete on its own. Activity L1 (ch4-5) adds the falling pluck lead + its soft low echo. Activity L2 (ch6-7) ADDS NEW material, not volume: a sustained pad descant a sixth under the lead that also falls, AND a descending pluck arpeggio (the rope paying out hand-over-hand). Danger runs at a faster section tempo (96 vs 72 BPM). Danger L1 (ch8-9) is the descent gone apprehensive: ONE dislodged- rock stoneTom per bar with a long FALLING fade (fall:true — you never hear it land) over a low E darkDrone + one sparse boom — real unease, not near- silence. Danger L2 (ch10-11) is a GENUINE intensity jump for fight/flee: a stoneTom run whose spacing TIGHTENS across the bar (the wall failing faster and descending in pitch), a driving doubled kick, and an accelerating hatTick — new rhythmic material and higher density at the danger tempo, NOT danger1 louder. Dread is abstract — falling motion + density — never a literal rockslide foley (that is the game's SFX). Fully diatonic E aeolian, zero chromaticism (the row's 'clean' mandate, reclaiming the rejected theme's tonal center deliberately).
