From nearly the moment he arrived, Sei'ku was left in the care of a governess. His father made sure he was always well tended to, though he lacked the paternal instinct to do it himself. As a child among elves, Sei'ku was half wild. Understanding he didn't belong, he leaned into it. He was believed to be difficult, because of his talons and his wings, so he was difficult.

One day, Evermeet, the elven homeland of his father, was visited by an aarakocran monk when Sei'ku was five. Hekar was simply a missionary, traveling and sharing his travels. But he was a birdfolk. And as Sei'ku struggled to properly use his wings, his governess thought to invite the monk to meet the boy.

After meeting with Sei'ku and his father, Hekar took Galonwe aside and spoke with him of Sei'ku's future. Hekar felt for the boy, isolated among kin who could never understand his longing for the skies, and so offered to take him under wing. If his father allowed it, Sei'ku could come with Hekar back to his monastery, far away in Chult, to train among the aarakocra there. Sei'ku, he promised, would be well provided for, cared for, and would learn to make better use of his mother's gifts.

Some consideration and one prophetic dream from his celestial lover later, Galonwe allowed the monk to take his son. Even struggling to connect with Sei'ku, he wanted what was best for him and provided Hekar with a generous bit of gold to see to Sei'ku's well being and education at Kir Sabal.

At that age, however, this of course was difficult for Sei'ku to understand. On the one hand, he'd already quickly come to adore the birdfolk who'd helped him to fly, even just a little at the time. On the other, it felt as though his father was finally abandoning him. So while Sei'ku readily followed his new mentor, it was with a lasting distrust of his father.

The aarakocra, gifted as they were with the skies, lived unfairly short lives. And while Sei'ku had seemed to age rapidly among the elves, he now found himself watching those around him grow and age beyond him. His peers were ever changing, and his mentor, though ever spry, aged years in months.

It was isolating to be the only humanoid among them, barring even his celestial gifts from the equation. But still, he found more of a home in Kir Sabal with the aarakocra than he ever did in Evermeet.

As he reached his teenage years, Sei'ku came to discover a different guiding point in his life. Ithuriel, an angelic guide of his mother's people, became a voice in his dreams and his heart. While Hekar guided him in the present, Ithuriel guided him for the future, whispering purpose into his soul, promising Sei'ku would need to be ready for things to come.

Between their tutelage, Sei'ku trained as a monk, but found his true power came from a more divine source. The young paladin honed his skills in the dangerous jungles of his home, longing to make Hekar and Asharra, the leader of Kir Sabal, proud of him.

But as Hekar was the closest thing to a father Sei'ku ever really knew and unfairly old before Sei'ku was out of his teens, his passing was difficult. Sei'ku decided to leave Kir Sabal mere days after Hekar's funeral. Following the path his angelic guide paved for him in dreams, Sei'ku felt he had to leave if he was going to ever truly find where he was meant to be. Teacher Asharra gifted him the ornate spear he so often trained with and her blessing before he left, reminding him that no matter where his road took him, there would always be a home for him in Kir Sabal.

Found by a scavenging party from a nearby settlement, they met Valeera, a young human hunter, and Hava, a wily old halfling medicine woman who had, somehow, found the artifact they'd been after. Making a deal with the two women to escort them out of the jungle in exchange for the Scarab of Protection, the four of them set off to find other survivors of their mission.

What they found was the terror reigning down on Chult under Ras Nsi's rule. Finding few survivors, strange war factories, and more than a few dragons, Sei'ku eventually led them to the sanctuary of Kir Sabal.

It was there they learned the true extent of Ras Nsi's evil from Shamil, an escaped war prisoner. She explained that Ras Nsi had forced her to build his weapons and the machinery for his Walking Tomb. And if he wasn't stopped, she feared he'd find a way to summon the Night Serpent and plunge all of Chult and Toril into darkness.

Though Sei'ku felt a duty to return the Scarab to Halarahh, Chult was his home. And even Halarahh would not be safe if Ras Nsi's plans met their ends.

While they prepared for what would come next, Sei'ku was approached by Mwaxanaré, the young descendant of the once ruling family of Chult. She demanded that, as a Chultan and a monk of the monastery that hosted her family, Sei'ku bring her an artifact Ras Nsi allegedly had. Unimpressed with her spoiled arrogance, Sei'ku refused her and instead said that if she wanted to someday be queen of Chult, she should do so without the help of an artifact stained by her ancestor's bloody rule. If she wanted to lead, she would need to prove that she could. No artifact would do it for her.

Sei'ku and his team later left Kir Sabal under a blessed flight spell to race to the mountains in the South. Though they had a brief and rocky encounter with a lich desecrating a Chultan holy site along the way, they reached the mountain in record time.

After defeating Cinder, the red dragon who'd taken over the mountain, they were able to open a teleportation for Shamil to join them in the abandoned dwarven forges there. Able to forge herself deadly new prosthetics to replace what Ras Nsi stole from her, Shamil proceeded to build them a means of chasing his Walking Tomb: a quick flying, mechanical buggie.

Once they tracked its current location to a slow spiraling pattern in the west, they prepared for what would come next: a full assault on Ras Nsi's mobile fortress.

He had a dream in a field of amaranth, the same sort of dream Ithuriel always sent him, but it was different somehow. He saw his spear, Pharos, in the field, and when he grasped it felt a surge of not only power, but hope. When he woke and reached for his blade, that feeling remained and Sei'ku began to understand. In the realm of the celestials, Ithuriel was but a watcher. By binding his essence to something on the material plane, like an ornate spear, he was able to lend Sei'ku his power. Even at the cost of being bound indefinitely.

With this debt to his guide weighing on him, Sei'ku prepared for the assault at dawn with the others. Using the buggie to attack the Walking Tomb from the center, they dismantled several of its major controls from the start. They fought their way through each ascending level of the tomb to Ras Nsi, freeing captives and even some of their former crew along the way.

Thanks to their quick work, Ras Nsi waas unaware of the assault until they were already upon him. Catching the yuan-ti lord by surprise, they entered a difficult combat in close quarters while Kir Sabal reinforcements descended on the tomb. Together, they took him down, not yet knowing slaying Ras Nsi would be the easy part.

While they caught their breath and assessed the stolen artifacts (including the claice Mwaxanare sought) in Ras Nsi's rooms, an inhuman shriek from above shook the tomb.

Fearing Ras Nsi's second had still managed to summon the Night Serpent, they rushed to the ziggurat atop the tomb, only to find the yuan-ti priestess cowering from what she'd brought forth. Not a serpent, something older, and much worse.

Still drained from thier last fight, they engaged with the huge, disfigured, creature. It plunged them into a life draining darkness, feeing on their energy. With Hava doing what she could to keep the others up, they were able to bring down the creature with a strike of impossible radiance from Sei'ku's spear.

But even in its death wails, it felt as though its aura lingered.

They collected their found allies, the numerous captives, and joined the monks in rounding up the last of the yuan-ti still loyal to Ras Nsi as they descended the tomb. In its staggering shadow, they made camp with the survivors. Sei'ku, though nearly killed in the fight himself, aided in tending to the wounded, though healing magic still seemed weak.

When the ground began to shake beneath the tomb and no one had the energy for another fight, Sei'ku and Messenger still reached for their weapons. But in a moment of beauty, they watched as flora began to pull the broken tomb into the earth.

Suddenly surrounded by dozens, hundreds of chawinga, little forest spirits, they watched as something else, something greater emerged in place of the tomb. Ubtao, the primordial deity long thought missing from the region, rose before them. Feeling a threat to the very world still looming, he returned, and thanked Sei'ku, Messenger, Valeera, and Hava as heroes for restoring order long since lost to Ras Nsi.

Unsure what to make of seeing this god disappear into the jungle with his spirits in tow, Sei'ku slumped back against a tree and tilted his head up towards the stars. They'd won, and possibly been blessed by Ubtao himself, but something else still loomed ahead. And though he'd thought his prophetic dreams had been leading him to Ras Nsi, he feared it was just the beginning.

Confident they could stop her as they had other threats, the party made their way towards yet another Chultan ruin she'd claimed as her own to meet her head on. With its upper levels empty, they descened ever downwards as the air grew hotter around them.

Emerging into a cavern of lava, they found Valindra and several undead waiting for them.

She was cocky, but so were they. Sei'ku and Messenger ran head first into the fight, intending to take out the larger of the undead before focusing on Valindra. But when she began to focus on their backline, they swerved their attention on her. Being a powerful mage, she flew out of Messenger's reach, moving to a small platform over the lava.

Spreading his wings, Sei'ku took off after her. In a burst of divine speed, he struck her with everything he had. He wasn't prepared for her to ground him with magic stealing his flight and sending him plummeting to the lava below.

Unable to reach him, his friends could only watch him fall. Refusing to accept the prospect of dying while leaving his friends to her, Sei'ku launched a string of Fire Ball Beads at Valindra, just as she intended to cast her own version of the same spell. In an instant, they were consumed by the flames.

As the smoke settled, Valindra was gone, and Sei'ku was left dying in the lava. Through quick use of Hava's trickster magic, they were able to bring his body back to main platform and pump every bit of healing magic they had into him. Covered head to toe in burns, his wings scorched and mangled, he was alive, but barely.

With the luck of the gods, they encountered a mission of Selunites in the jungle and plead with them for healing. Though the group cleric warned them his healing magic had been on the fritz, he was able to cast a ritual of restoration with Hava's assistance. For the first time in days, they watched Sei'ku breathe a little easier, the worst of his burns healed, and his wings slowly regenerating.

It was almost a miracle.

But just as Sei'ku seemed to be coming to himself a little more, something else broke. Sei'ku screamed as his wings erupted in reverse, fully formed, from his back. Hava put him to sleep with magic, trying to hide his mind from the pain as the rest of them looked on in horror.

Hoping to keep him alive, and not really knowing what it would do, Messenger fed him a longevity potion. And while it deaged Sei'ku to the physical age of eighteen, it did not restore him to that point.

Out of other options, they returned to their plan of finding the nearest active temple come sun up. But before the sun rose, a strange young man wandered into their camp. And though Messenger threatened his life if he hurt Sei'ku, the young nobleman promised he was only here because something he carried sensed the paladin's suffering and wanted to help.

When Zymun pressed his walking stick to Sei'ku's temple, Sei'ku felt at ease for the first time since he fell.

Opening his eyes, he found himself laying in the field of amaranth he knew from his dreams. For a moment, he saw a shadowed figure leaning over him. But that figure quickly vanished as golden light flooded the field and Sei'ku felt himself embraced by Ithuriel. With a barrier broken by whatever Zymun or his stick had done, the celestial was able to come forth in a way his current situation bound to Pharos had prevented.

There was little the celestial could do, but he could share his power. Ithuriel offered a pact that would bind him, Pharos, and Sei'ku immutably. And Sei'ku accepted without hesitation.

Though all his friends had seen was Zymun touching him with the walking stick, moments later they watched Sei'ku's wings fall away in ash and light as new, proper wings grew gracefully from his scarred back, unearthly and shimmering in the moonlight.

Before they could question what Zymun had done, Sei'ku woke up fully for the first time in days. In a night both celebratory and somber, they joined Zymun in his magically summoned tower for the evening with promises to talk more come morning.

But with strange magic coursing through him, Sei'ku instead communed with Ithuriel to learn what exactly this pact had wrought. Having been so gravely injured, Sei'ku lost some of his more physical abilities — his sharp eye sight now partially lost, his body still wrecked by the scars that lingered — but in return, Ithuriel had, as he promised, shared his power. Though still a monk at heart, Sei'ku lacked their finer abilities now, but his pact offered a measure of magical protection he had never possessed.

His guide shared another thing with him: concern. A concern that was aimed at and mirrored by Zymun. Somehow, the boy who had helped save him was part of the growing darkness his guide foretold in his dreams.

And when they spoke with Zymun, he spoke of a great evil approaching, seals that were beginning to break, and how he only came to Chult because he sensed one had been broken. He described a creature much like they'd fought atop the Walking Tomb and the pieces began to fall into place.

Though he was still trying to figure out what move to make next, Zymun asked for their help. That should the time come, they answer his call to stop the threat of the Chained Oblivion should he be freed. Feeling indebted to him, Sei'ku agreed and the others followed suit even if some distrust of the strange young man was still had and openly expressed.

Despite Hava's constant insistance that he was being foolish, Sei'ku maintained the illusion. Nearing Kir Sabal, he pleaded with them to keep the truth of his new body a secret. While not agreeing with his reasons, they agreed it wasn't their place to out his insecurities to his family.

Before reaching Kir Sabal, they found themselves on the steps of Nangalore, the garden prison of Mwaxanaré's long cursed medusa ancestor, Zalkoré. Not knowing where they were until it was too late, they narrowly managed to kill the medusa and her pet. While Hava took a moment to recover from her petrification, Sei'ku relied on his new magic to read the ancient Omuan writings in the garden. Finding the true cause of her curse, he said a quiet prayer for Zalkoré to find peace, and tucked one of her black flowers among his things.

To Sei'ku's surprise, the monastery was not as they'd left it. At the base of the cliffs, a refugee village had been constructed, housing many of those rescued from Ras Nsi. While they were gone, Teacher explained, Princess Mwaxanaré had stepped up to organize the sudden influx of refugees and make sure all were cared for. While many were still recovering from the wounds of battle or the tortures of Ras Nsi, others were beginning to build a life in Kir Sabal's shadow thanks to her.

It was a stark change from the quiet monastery Sei'ku had grown up in, but it was a good change.

After a brief bit of magical communication with Halarahh, the Scarab of Protection was finally picked up by one of their mages, and for the first time in months, Sei'ku and his party were free of looming responsibility. Though Messenger decided to part ways with them for awhile, needing to chase after something personal, Sei'ku and the others remained at Kir Sabal. Teacher, Shamil, and Mwaxanaré even presented them with a reason to stay: the Heart of Ubtao.

The place where they first encountered Valindra, her magic had since corrupted the old holy site. With Ubtao's reemergence, however, rather than try to cleanse it, there were ideas of rebuilding it anew. Who better to guard the floating rock — soon to be flying keep — than the heroes Ubtao himself blessed? It would take some time, some funding, and some magic, but Shamil was confident she could make it work.

While the keep was to be built, Sei'ku began to join Mwaxanaré on daily rounds to visit the refugees and assist with those who needed healing. Though he became aware Mwaxanaré knew he was hiding something with magic, she didn't press the issue. In their absence, it seemed she had done a bit of growing up, no longer demanding her wishes simply because she was royal blood.

While walking together one day, Sei'ku told her what had become of both her family relic and her ancestor. Now that both were no more than history, he told her to write a new chapter to their legacy, one better and brighter than the last. She was already doing good work here. Admitting she'd taken his words to heart, Mwaxanaré was glad to hear she was free of even considering her family's old crutches and only hoped that Sei'ku would realize he didn't need similar magical crutches either.

Feeling caught out and flustered, Sei'ku excused himself and Mwaxanaré didn't bring it up again. But when Kir Sabal was attacked in the middle of the night, Sei'ku thought only of protecting his people. He forgot to cast his glamour and in the midst of battle Mwaxanaré saw his true self, ghostly wings and all. Though Sei'ku focused on the battle at hand and protecting Prince Na, Mwaxanaré's little brother, he knew she would want answers.

The wings were really what troubled him. Unearthly and wrong, not his wings, not really, they reminded him more of his failure with Valindra than anything. The scars and the age were just salt in still fresh wounds. But with his secret out, Sei'ku decided to face the music with first Teacher and then Mwaxanaré and tell them what truly happened with the lich. Though neither woman saw it as the failure he did, they both reminded him of one truth: no one in Kir Sabal would look as down on him as he did.

As the days passed, Sei'ku slowly began to drop some of his illusions, always aware of glances he got from the seemingly sudden changes. The wings, however, he kept hidden behind the image of his old ones. He could bare his scars, but not those. Not yet.

Between tasks for Shamil or Teacher, Sei'ku began to spend time with Mwaxanaré again, having avoided her for some time after the battle. One night, when he woke from a dream of darkness he couldn't shake, he heard Mwaxanaré call for him in his mind. He found her sitting out on the cliff and she asked if he would join her for a quick flight. She led him to a hidden grove, not far from Kir Sabal, that Sei'ku had come to often in his youth. It was now her escape from Kir Sabal, same as it had been his.

It was peaceful there, quiet. They waded into the pool and spoke of growing up and feeling alone in the monastery. She remembered him, from before he left, but they were strangers then. Now, Sei'ku was often in her thoughts. First, she'd set out merely to prove him wrong about her, but in doing so proved him right. Everything she'd done to support the people of Chult, she did because of him. Because someone had finally told her to stop being a brat and become a leader. She held out her hands to him, calloused for the first time in her life, because she'd joined in the planting this year at Kir Sabal.

They spoke for awhile, about Kir Sabal and themselves, and Mwaxanaré confessed her reason for bringing Sei'ku to the grove. Since he'd left to fight Ras Nsi, she'd thought of him. First in spite, and then in concern. And now, constantly. She understood if it was too much, or too bold, but she'd grown incredibly fond of him. Sei'ku had also come to respect her since his return, come to value her opinion of him, enjoy her company. While he had not thought of what that could mean in the concept of them, had never really had such thoughts at all before, her confession was met in kind.

Returning to Kir Sabal before the sun rose, they carried with them a secret, an unspoken promise to the other sealed with a first kiss.

Of course, nothing ever stays so simple or peaceful, not with a demon god rising. And the arrival of a demon lord proclaiming herself the new queen of Chult means Sei'ku and his friends will have to stop Choke or risk the destruction of everything they love.