Portal Keys

Amalia Bockelberg sat on the bed of her small bedroom in Dresden and cried. In her hands she held a gold necklace with a medallion hanging at the end. It was the only family heirloom she had left as Princess of Marinau-Flüsterburg after she was disowned by her father. The medallion depicted a golden ancient city in the Orient decorated with blue gemstones. Amalia opened it and what appeared was an old photo of her noble family, to which she no longer belonged after her improper marriage.

Excerpt from the novel -

Portal Keys are items used only by non-magical people to travel between the portals of Elaqitan. Everyone else can open and close the mirror gates using their own magic. Although many people have developed a disgust for the magical gates since the portals were built in the 4th millennium BEC and have tried everything to destroy these doors, there have also been some who have recognized their purpose and used them for their own gain. After the gates were destroyed, many of these portal keys found their way as memory-items into the human world. Maybe one of these items is in your possession - without you knowing it.

Portkey Medaillon by Blue Fairy 74 - Midjourney-Collage

Item, Key Master & Required Ingredients

Required Ingredients

• object
• key master
• glass dome
• elemental magic coasters
• moss, fan/feather, bowl of water or fire

Testing the suitability of an item as a portkey by Blue Fairy 74 - Midjourney-Collage

Small objects that are not immediately recognizable as such and are easy to carry on the body are particularly suitable as portal keys. Many people therefore mainly used jewelry such as brooches, necklaces, gems, rings or small weapons such as daggers or knives. Of course, these keys didn't work entirely without magic either, because portals only open when they detect elemental magic like a kind of genetic sequence or like in the year 2,800 BEC when many gates were destroyed by a chain reaction.
Additionally, you have to visit a key master to imbue the item with magic. Members of this guild were already few and far between at 3,000 BEC and even then only richer citizens and nobles could afford to use their services.

Making a portal key

The key master checks the item for its suitability as a key. To do this, he places it on a Wotrilium coaster that has been "soaked" with the magic of all four elements and puts a glass dome over it. The master then activates the magic of the elements with the spell of revelation. If nothing happens inside the dome, then the item is unsuitable. If one of the elements is ignited, for example by leaves growing, flames blazing, a vortex of air created, or rain falling in the dome, the key master can move on to the next step. Items that trigger multiple elements are considered particularly powerful. However, these are extremely rare and closely guarded treasures, as they are not only intended to enable travel between the individual continents.
After the element is revealed, the key master transfers the appropriate elemental magic into the item. To do this, the object is “enveloped” with an element by wrapping it in moss, placing it in fire or water, or creating a vortex of air. Then the master uses the spells of the leaf, the fire, the breath of air or the drops and the object absorbs the respective element that surrounds it. The item is now ready for use.