Bad Habit's Arc

Chapter 5 of 10

Bad Habit chased King Slither into the tunnel and felt the floor drop under him. Behind, the snake struck a valve on the wall. Water burst from the ceiling in a black wall. It slammed the passage shut. Bad Habit spun. The way back was gone, sealed by a wall of rushing water. Ahead, the tunnel narrowed and sloped down. The flood was rising fast around his boots. King Slither's laugh slid back through the dark. "Swim, then. Or drown. My brother drowned better men than you." His tail flicked once and he poured deeper into the tunnel, gone. Bad Habit tried to teleport past the sealed wall. He blinked forward and hit stone. He could not jump to a place he could not see. The water reached his knees. His red eyes could burn a man, but they could not boil a flood. He needed a way through, not a fight. He pulled the little creatures from his coat pockets. His habit sprites. Tiny things, quick and clever, each strapped with tools and gauges. They rode with him for jobs like this. One clutched a small jar of glowing honey against its chest. Bad Habit had used honey before to feed the vampire vine that guarded the snake's hole. The sprite understood. "Find air," Bad Habit said. "Find a crack." The sprites scattered into the drain pipes lining the tunnel. Water climbed to his chest. Cold pressed his ribs. He counted his breaths and waited. Then a sprite screeched from a low pipe near the floor. It waved a bent wrench and pointed. The sprites had jammed the pipe grate open. Behind it, the honey jar sat wedged in a seam. The vampire vine had smelled the honey and forced its head through the wall, cracking the stone wide. Its serpent eyes glowed. Its jaws dripped and snapped at the sweet jar. The plant tore at the seam, hungry, widening the gap with every pull. Bad Habit took a breath and dove. He swam for the broken seam. The vine's jaws snapped past his shoulder, chasing the honey, not him. He grabbed the cracked edge and hauled himself through into a dry side channel. Water gushed after him, then slowed as the tunnel behind filled and settled. He lay on cold stone, coughing. The sprites climbed onto his chest, chittering, pleased with themselves. He counted them. All there. The one who carried the honey had left it behind for the vine. Bad Habit stood in the dry channel. Fresh air moved against his face. It came from ahead, from the direction Slither had fled. The snake had tried to bury him and only shown him the shape of his home. Bad Habit followed the moving air toward the snake gang's base. But first we fish where is my fishing pole little creatures the catfish are biting and I’m hungry Woot woot