# Tundra Aurora v3b — Aurora Borealis: Curtain & Bell (E lydian, foxfire, flaring danger)

`tundra-aurora-v3b` — levels: `calm.mp3` · `activity1.mp3` · `activity2.mp3` · `danger1.mp3` · `danger2.mp3`

BOLDER second reading of tundra-aurora (E lydian, FOXFIRE instance, augment(x2) + the phrase-end upward portamento — glints stretched into curtains). Style: shimmer/bell ambiance, shimmerPad breathing + caveCelesta stars, a slow melody bending up at phrase ends; wonder, no harsh danger. It is deliberately DISTINCT from the faithful take, which folded the height into the pads (softPad sang the lead, celesta only trailed below) and made danger a wrong-SLOW dragging heartbeat. Here the orchestration is inverted AND the danger goes the opposite way: (1) the LEAD is a struckPiano tone BRIGHT — bell-bright and articulate, the 'bell' half of the brief made literal (bright over warm because the aurora wants present, glinting attack, not mellow intimacy) — singing the augmented foxfire and bending up at phrase ends; (2) the caveCelesta is promoted to a real second VOICE plus a windChime (a NEW instrument the faithful take never used) touched once a phrase as the bed's signature glint; (3) DANGER is a genuine FASTER danger-section tempo (60->84 BPM) — the aurora FLARING, a solar surge — so danger2 is a real intensity jump, but kept cold and abstract: fully diatonic E lydian, zero harsh harmony. Calm (ch0-3): bed only — two shimmerPad voices breathing in overlap (the curtain re-blooms on every retrigger), sparse sub, caveCelesta stars + one windChime touch per phrase. Activity L1 (ch4-5) = the bright struckPiano singing the augmented foxfire with phrase-end bends + a soft caveCelesta star-echo a beat behind. Activity L2 (ch6-7) ADDS new material (not volume): a caveCelesta 'constellation' arpeggio rising through the lydian chord scattered between the lead glints AND a windChime answer once a phrase — the sky FILLS with stars, the lead untouched. Danger L1 (ch8-9) = unease/the approach at the flare tempo: a low even kick pulse under a darkening E pedal (darkDrone) with a spaced boom — real material, the temperature dropping (NOT near-silence). Danger L2 (ch10-11) = the flare: a driving doubled pulse, frost ticks thickening across the bar, and an agitated tremolo shimmer accent over-blowing as the curtain surges — higher density + energy + new rhythmic instruments, NOT danger1 louder. Dread is abstract (the surge, density, a quickening pulse) — never chromatic darkening and never a literal storm/wind/cold foley (cold air belongs to the game's SFX + ambient soundscape). Fully diatonic E lydian throughout.
