# Rift Descent v3a — Mile Down (grave house, the descent in the bed)

`rift-descent-v3a` — levels: `calm.mp3` · `activity1.mp3` · `activity2.mp3` · `danger1.mp3` · `danger2.mp3`

Take A is the faithful, polished baseline for rift-descent: grave HOUSE in E aeolian (clean — zero chromaticism, the row's deliberate reclaiming of the rejected theme's tonal center), 72 BPM. The descent is written into the BED: a diatonically DESCENDING bass that steps down one scale-degree per bar and cycles (E·D·C·B·A·G·F#·E across eight bars) under STATIC, held hollow pads (an Em-add9 / open-fifth wash that never changes chord). You stand still; the floor of the harmony keeps sinking — committed descent. The activity lead is the batch-d motif invert(TREAD): the patient walk turned DOWNWARD, a resolute pluck that FALLS (E·D·C, rocking, ending open where it began) exactly where the overworld benchmark's line rises — same unhurried phrasing, opposite gravity; the second bar of each phrase restates it a step lower so the line drifts down with the bass. Activity L1 (ch4-5) = that falling pluck + a soft echo a step behind. Activity L2 (ch6-7) ADDS NEW material, not volume: a slow warm-pad COUNTER-VOICE a sixth/third below (the second climber on the rope) AND a sparse DESCENDING pluck arpeggio whose chord tones step downward, reinforcing the sinking bass — the fall harmonized and filled out. Danger is ENCOUNTER music and steps the tempo UP to 88 BPM for the whole section. Danger L1 (ch8-9) is unease/the approach: a darkening E/B drone, a slow grave kick heartbeat, and stoneTom dislodged-rock hits with long FALLING fades into silence (you hear them go, never land) plus tightening hat ticks — real material, not near-silence. Danger L2 (ch10-11) is a GENUINE intensity jump for active fight/flee: the full kit crashes in — a driving doubled kick + snare backbeat (ch10) and a dense urgent shaker + hat motion with MORE stoneTom (ch11), the wall coming apart — new rhythmic instruments and density at the faster tempo, NOT danger1 louder. Dread is abstract (register, density, falling-rock fades, the quicker tempo), never chromatic and never a literal rockslide foley. There is NO updraft/wind/air bed — the §3/§4 'warm updraft from below' Depth note is retired (correction 3). Fully diatonic E aeolian throughout.
