[Prologue – The Brass Descent] Turn the wheel, release the brake, Let the iron belly wake. Coal-fire heart and copper veins, Pressure climbing through the mains. Three miles down where sunlight dies, Past the reach of human eyes, Our brass leviathan descends Where every map and compass ends. The rivets groan, the gauges shake, Something moves beneath our wake. The lamps catch shapes that shouldn't be— A mountain underneath the sea. [Instrumental – The Descent] --- [Verse 1 – The Impossible Door] There in the trench, a canyon wall, A fracture wide enough for all Our little submarine to pass Between the teeth of volcanic glass. Engines low and ballast tight, We disappear from ocean light. The tunnel twists for mile on mile— Then suddenly... The darkness smiles. [Pre-Chorus] Blue and violet, green and gold, A world no surface map has told. The ceiling rises out of sight— And living forests make the light. --- [Chorus – The World Below] There is a city under the sea Where no one knows of you or me, Where crystal towers touch the sky And coral lanterns never die. No sun above, no stars to know, No tales of lands where rivers flow. They built a world beneath our own And thought that they were all alone. --- [Verse 2 – The Hidden Continent] We climbed ashore on silver sand And looked across an endless land, A cavern wider than a sea, A buried world's geography. There were forests glowing blue, Crystal rivers running through Fields of coral, pale and tall, Growing like trees beneath it all. And coming down the crystal road A hundred figures slowly showed. Two arms. Two eyes. Two hands. Two feet. Human faces came to meet The strangers falling from above— With equal measures fear and wonder. --- [Bridge – First Contact] They touched our brass. We touched their stone. Neither knew we weren't alone. They spoke in tones like falling rain, We drew our meanings on the plain. A circle— world. A hand— friend. A broken line— danger. Then they pointed to the ceiling. --- [Dark Instrumental – Black Rain] --- [Verse 3 – The Poison] Across the northern vault we saw A wound splitting through the cavern floor— No. Not the floor. The roof above. A blackness pushing through the rock. Drop... by drop... by drop... It fell upon the glowing fields, And everything it touched would yield. Crystal gardens lost their flame, Coral forests blackened, stained. Children ran beneath the rain While elders tried to dam the stain. They had no word that we could know. So we gave them one: Oil.
