Bad Habits (audio story)

Bad Habits was the fifty-eighth Bernice Summerfield audio story released by Big Finish Productions. It was the second story of the Road Trip series.

Publisher's summary
Meet Sister Bernice — newest initiate into the order of Saint Celestion. Such is her devotion to the faith that she and her young companion, Sister Ruth, have undertaken a pilgrimage to the planet Agora, birthplace of the blessed Saint himself.

The pilgrims aren't alone, however. Also on the planet is a team of archaeologists searching for the lost tomb of Celestion — a subject in which Sister Bernice seems curiously interested...

In her quest to unearth an ancient relic that will point the way to Legion, Bernice will face some fearsome challenges: the dreaded Blood Beast of Thaloon, the randiest Bishop in the galaxy, and an ancient cult with some very bad habits indeed...

Plot
Benny and Ruth pose as nuns to gain passage on the Sisters of Celestion's spacecraft to Agora, where they have been led to believe that the route to Legion can be found using the Sphere of the Serenity in the Talishante Monastery. During the flight, Sister Caitlin is found strangled with her own prayer beads and a funeral for her, but Mother Aurelia asks Benny and Sister Marianne to keep the fact that she was murdered a secret.

Bishop Synesius welcomes the Sisters to the monastery, the resting place of Saint Celestion, and gives them a tour, telling them about Melville Trout's excavations and the curse of the Blood Beast of Thaloon. In the morning, Benny uses a computer to hack into the archaeologists' approaching ship and delete the records of Professor Bunny Hare, a dendrochronology expert whose identity she intends to steal by keeping them in suspended animation. Not long after the archaeologists arrive, one of them, Dr Gaiter is killed with his own trowel. Sister Marianne tells Ruth that she suspects Mother Aurelia of being behind the deaths and they join forces.

A sonic cannon brings down the ceiling whilst the archaeologists are excavating and all but Benny are killed. The catacombs are closed, so Benny gets Synesius drunk and steals the keys before heading there with Mother Aurelia, whom she runs into on her way. She reveals that she does not need her wheelchair and that she is Jennifer L. Jessop, a murder mystery writer and amateur detective who suspects that Synesius is behind the killings. He locks the two of them in a burial chamber and they are joined by Trout, who survived the rockfall and has been continuing the excavation in secret. Trout leads the way to the tomb and they encounter the Blood Beast of Thaloon, which is actually a pantomime horse.

Sister Marianne attacks Ruth and heads to the tomb to kill Benny. She kills Brian and Clive, the two who played the Blood Beasts, for their inefficiency and confirms that she belongs to the Council of Ten, which intends to keep the tomb secret. She killed Sister Caitlin after she overheard Sister Marianne communicating with the Council and killed Dr Gaiter in the hopes that it would put an end to the excavation. Benny examines Saint Celestion's relics and deduces that he was simply an astronaut and that the Council of Ten want to keep this secret to protect their religion. She uses a suspended animation device to freeze Sister Marianne.

Having found the Sphere of the Serenity in Saint Celestion's tomb, which is actually a Serenity 6000 Star Map manufactured by Serenity Systems of Sassa Nevada, Benny and Ruth head to a medical ship to leave Agora, now knowing exactly where Legion is.

Cast

 * Bernice Summerfield - Lisa Bowerman
 * Ruth - Ayesha Antoine
 * Mother Aurelia - Jacqueline King
 * Bishop Synesius - Nigel Lambert
 * Sister Marianne - Charlie Langdell
 * Professor Melville Trout - Ian H Watkins
 * Brian - Marcus Harris
 * Brother Mumford - Paul Jones
 * Clive - Scott Handcock
 * Sister Hettie - Alice Ingham
 * Sister Ermintrude - Charlotte Parkyn

Crew

 * Cover Art - Alex Mallinson
 * Executive Producers - Nicholas Briggs and Jason Haigh-Ellery
 * Music and Sound Design - Steve Foxon
 * Producer & Director - Gary Russell
 * Writer - Simon Barnard and Paul Morris
 * Line Producer - David Richardson

Worldbuilding

 * Benny and Ruth forge a recommendation from Archbishop Quogthorn.
 * Aurelia uses a wheelchair.
 * Sister Caitlin is killed with her own prayer beads.
 * Benny and Ruth met a Verunian holy man.
 * The Sisters stay in the Convent of the Blessed Father.
 * Aurelia says that Talishante Monastery is the most sacred place in the Twelve Galaxies.
 * Brother Talishante founded the monastery 2,000 years ago.
 * Truvian gore-hounds are used for security.
 * The monastery has a statue of Brother Martello.
 * Mumford had a fish called Sammy. It was because of him that he joined the priesthood.
 * Trout is a Talpidian.
 * Dr Gaiter was a geophysicist.
 * Synesius eats stilton and avocado.
 * Mother Aurelia wrote Ten Little Martians, Evil Under the Moon and Murder on the Omega Express.
 * Trout eats worms.
 * The Sacred Sceptre of Celestion is an argon discharge globe
 * The Holy Chalice is a personal urine recycler.
 * The Casket of the Abiding Light is a suspended animation device. The Box of Blessed Bounty is a controller for it.

Continuity

 * Benny talks about her time at school when she discovered that matron was a giant toad feeding on the pupils. (PROSE: Biology Lesson on Mal Oreille)
 * Benny talks about when she ran away from the Academy and doctored her passport. (PROSE: Genius Loci)
 * Benny sings as part of a choir. (AUDIO: The Worst Thing in the World)
 * Aurelia wrote the book Murder on the Omega Express. (AUDIO: Private Enemy No. 1)