# Sunless Crossing v3a — Black Water Ferry (faithful barcarolle)

`sunless-crossing-v3a` — levels: `calm.mp3` · `activity1.mp3` · `activity2.mp3` · `danger1.mp3` · `danger2.mp3`

FAITHFUL take: a melodic 6/8 barcarolle in B aeolian (clean), 68 BPM — rowing still black water in the dark, your lamp the only moon. The bed IS the oar-stroke: a low softPad fifth holding the still water over a rocking long-short sub sway (a strong PULL on beat one, a lifted RECOVERY eighth, the CATCH on beat two of each 6/8 bar — a 24-row bar, eighth = 4 rows) with a soft pluck ripple touched once per beat, so drifting already rocks. The HORIZON motif is re-seated octave-down and minor-shadowed: octaveShift(-1) sits the lead low (anchor B-4, the statement running B-3..G-4) so the pull of distance reads as quiet resolve toward a rumor of the far shore, and B aeolian's minor 3 (D) and minor 6 (G) shadow the rising arc — resolve, not longing. Stated recognizably once at the top of activity (renderMotif over a compound grid: rises 1-2-3 to the crest on 5, brushes the minor 6, ends open on 2), then wound out as free phrases leaning the modal minor colour. Activity L1 (ch4-5) is the barcarolle lead in long arcs plus its soft-pluck wake echo a beat-and-a-half later. Activity L2 (ch6-7) ADDS NEW material, not volume: a LOW counterline — the second rower — pulling a third/sixth below in long compound tones (B-2..A-3, a second oar under the water) AND a gentle compound-eighth pluck ripple fill on the off-beats; the boat fully crewed. Danger is the wakes converging, abstract: danger1 (ch8-9) is the crossing gone apprehensive — a soft hull-register pulse OUT OF SYNC with the oar-stroke (offset off the compound beats: a wake that is not yours), under a low cavern drone rising as pitched density (the row's waterLap and the cavern air-noise floor are retired per correction 3 — rendered pitched, never water/air noise) and a hull-register deepBoom once a bar; real material, something keeping pace just out of step. Danger2 (ch10-11) is the full ensemble crashing in at a FASTER danger stroke (92): overlapping wake-pulses on a displaced 6-row grid out of phase with the bed's 12-row pulse (a driving kick crowding the clean lilt), a brushed-snare backbeat on the urgent 'two', an urgent shaker churn, and the boom doubling on the downbeats — a genuine intensity jump, new rhythmic material, never danger1 louder. The danger bed drops the calm ripple so the wakes are the new motion. Fully diatonic B aeolian throughout (clean — no raised/flattened colour tones, no chromatic darkening); the dread is the out-of-phase convergence and density, never a literal wave/water/air foley (that belongs to the game's SFX + ambient soundscape).
