# Caves Vaulted (The Patient Dark) — take C, the swaying vault (v3)

`caves-vaulted-v3c` — levels: `calm.mp3` · `activity1.mp3` · `activity2.mp3` · `danger1.mp3` · `danger2.mp3`

Take C of caves-vaulted: the spacious house voice in a cave register, recast with genuinely different bones. (1) Groove — a slow, swaying LILT instead of a square 4/4: the sub lands on long pendular downbeats, the gong blooms on the swing downbeat, and the stereo glints answer at wide uneven delays, while the VAULT core is stated on a stretched 5-rows/beat grid so its three reaches breathe slowly with long rests. (2) Lead instrumentation — the VAULT statement is struck plainchant on FELT PIANO, with caveCelesta demoted to the answering glint; the canonical reading's lead/echo timbres are swapped. (3) Bed color — a soft GONG is touched at pattern boundaries through the calm bed (a long one-shot bloom) over hollow-fifth pads and a darkDrone foundation; the dorian major sixth (F#) is voiced once per phrase as the open door. Fully diatonic A dorian, dark but never spooky — no chromaticism used. Activity L1 = the felt-piano VAULT statement + one near celesta glint trailing it; L2 ADDS a second, wider/later celesta trail AND a soft warm-pad counter-voice a third below holding under each reach — the twin echo trails realized plus a counter, the space opening, not the lead turned up. Danger L1 = first signs, deepBooms spaced far apart over a low drone with a single slow drip-tick; L2 = the water arriving — boom spacing compresses, a low gong swell beats against them, and the drips quicken toward the wrap. Dread by proximity, fully diatonic.
