Portraits revealed through your current reading position.
Armless naga prisoner who reveals himself as self-proclaimed sultan of a new naga regime and offers Carl a treaty.
Rishi is the last surviving member of the original Blood Sultanate on the floor. Rather than follow Princess Vinata and his own primary wife into the Temple of Khepri, he buried himself in the dirt outside the castle and waited out the slaughter, surrendering afterward to Princess Donut, Imani, and Elle. Because he is not a blood member of the naga court he was never bound into the Sepsis Whore quest; in real life he married a distant cousin of the royal family and served as Vinata's representative at the Pre-Production Meeting. As a member of the enemy management team he was kept alive under Li Na's 107th White Dragons, sealed in a prismatic containment shield, stripped of gear, and — on someone's extra-cautious orders — relieved of all four arms.
Alone with Carl, Rishi explains that he hid in order to survive long enough to make a deal. He describes The Great Consensus philosophy, admits Vinata meant to steal the fleet and flee the galaxy, and reveals that news of the naga reneging on their shipyard contracts triggered chaos at home. He produces an AI-witnessed contract naming Carl De-Facto Leader of Earth and offering human citizenship in naga space plus five Naphil-Class Generation Ships in exchange for naga settlement rights in the solar system. He signs it as Sultan Rishi the Usurper, claiming his brothers have deposed Vinata's father and the House of Greens. Carl, unmoved and disgusted by another power-hungry leader, marks him and tells the watching Naga Protectorate of the New Reformer that Rishi is only the opening act.
A massive green-and-purple naga who, stripped of his armor and with all four arms surgically removed, looks less like a naga than like an enormous cobra. He sits coiled and serene under a single spotlight, tongue flicking, wearing a smug, amused expression.
The last living original Blood Sultanate member, who trades the naga throne's future for a treaty with Earth.
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