I enjoyed this for a little while. Then the author starting mucking about in time without explaining things well, including time/place, dream/not, cause/effect with jumps that make it hard to follow events. I'm stopping here due to the fact that any semblance of original plot is gone and the ability to understand what's going on is impossible. There needed to be more information, background, or interactions to know what's happening. At some point the portal event jumps forward like 6 months with no explanation followed by random deus ex machina fixing hard points.