Portencia, or Port, is a young adept girl who was captured by Kemetic Solutions during The Monarch Papers, and is now a member of Basecamp 34.
Personality
Portencia is a young girl, seemingly withdrawn from the cruelty she experienced while being kidnapped and tortured by Kemetic Solutions. According to Teddy Fallon, she was close with Climber, whom she saw as a mother figure. Portencia’s mind was eventually broken after a “coercion session” by Kendrick, an employee of Kemetic Solutions, and pieces of her mind were embedded into the minds of those she’d reached into.
Despite the traumatic events of her kidnapping, she has since grown into a courageous, confident, and inquisitive member of Basecamp 34, forming powerful bonds with other adepts, like Yuridia.
Biography
Portencia was born with the ability to see into the other peoples’ futures by accessing their traditional five senses, which then mingle with her own and allow her to interpret their futures. She was raised by her biological father, who was also an adept, and his partner. Her father taught her coping mechanisms for her powers, allowing her to live a relatively normal life.
At some point in time, Portencia was spotted by Theodore Fallon and recognized as an adept. She was kidnapped, and Kemetic Solutions performed unnameable horrors on her two fathers. Portencia cried for days upon her arrival in the underground facility. Although Teddy promised she could go back home someday, Portencia reached into his mind, realizing that this was a lie and that she had no home to go back to.
While at the underground facility, Portencia was put through numerous trials and tests of her abilities. She underwent “coercion sessions,” in order to make her more willing to use her powers. After many sessions, Portencia was eventually “broken” by an employee named Kendrick. After the session, Kendrick remained shell-shocked, only able to repeat Portencia’s home address. Teddy soon realized that Portencia herself was also broken, her mind fragmented and pieces embedded into the people whose minds she had touched.
During Phase Three, it was revealed that Portencia had left her fragmented memories in a number of places. One was found by Aether and posted on the Kemetic Solutions website, while another was hidden with The Last Oracular Eye, one with Martin Rank, and another with Teddy Fallon.
During Aether and Martin Rank’s attempt to break into Kemetic Solutions on May 31, 2017, Marty was nearly trapped by Teddy, who revealed that a fragment of Portencia had never been inside Kendrick. Rather, the fragment was inside of Teddy the entire time. Martin encountered Portencia with Climber in the underground facilities. Portencia knew Marty had come to save them, having previously embedded a fragment of her memory inside of him, so she reassured Climber that he meant well. Unfortunately, Marty was unable to rescue Portencia and the others, as the Storm arrived to attack Kemetic Solutions. In response, Portencia asked to be taken to the chair, so that they could escape. Alison resisted, stating that Portencia could die by using the chair. However, she was eventually convinced by Portencia that it was their only option. While Aether stayed behind to buy Portencia some time, Alison and Marty took her to the chair. Portencia, not having all the pieces of her memory, believed she would be unable to use her powers, but Alison comforted her and assured her that she could control her powers. She told Portencia that her power was not scary, but a gift, and told her to peer into the future and see the safe space she had created in her drawings. Portencia opened up the door to the future and took Alison with her, while Martin ran back to save Aether. The livestream cut out as the storm arrived, leaving the fates of Portencia and the others unknown.
After the Storm overtook Kemetic Solutions, Portencia’s fate was unknown, until Martin came out of hiding to speak to the Mountaineers. He revealed that Aether, Portencia, and Climber were safe together, hidden from the Storm. Portencia had brought them into the future that she saw. They were using a magimystic token that was gifted to Marty to hide from anything magimystical. Portencia remained in hiding for the remainder of Phase Four.
On The Day of Change, Alison popped in to tell Mountaineers that Aether was in the grid redirecting traffic away from Cole and Marty, and he was ready to access fire and rescue to register high gas levels so he could limit casualties. Port and Alison worked on a blinding charm to give low-level protection to recruits and Cole and Marty.
The Secret Society
According to Martin Rank’s “A Quick Check-in” post from February 2018, Aether, Alison, and Portencia were all still living together and adjusting back to normal life as a family unit. He said that Port was doing well in school and therapy, but that she was also finding it more difficult to use their adept powers, most likely due to the diminishing capacity of magic in the world.
The Search for Magiq
When the Mountaineers were able to contact Marty via Neithercourier during the Search for Magiq, they learned that he had been unable to contact the Kemetic Solutions trio for some time. Worried, he drove out to where they were living and found them “flat out gone. And it looked like they packed up and bailed in a hurry.” He also noted that “Port had covered a wall of her room with drawings of a mountain and a big old building, like a castle or a church, and she’d written “Search for Magiq" on every one of them.”
By July 2019, Eaves reported that Alison and Port had reached the Sanctuary and were faring well despite no longer being able to use their adept powers. Eaves claimed that Port didn’t seem at all bothered by the loss, but had been able to foresee some kind of threat in the shadows, searching for her and her friends, before she stopped being able to see the future.
During the Sanctuary’s retreat to Lion’s Heart, Port was able to save the group from attack by the Silver at least once by disappearing from the group to scout ahead. Despite Alison’s reserves that her behavior was too risky, Eaves declined to lecture Port about it, acknowledging that not only was she physically the best suited for scouting, being the smallest and the quickest, but she had also grown into a teenager and no longer needed quite so much protection.
The Book of Briars
After the Book of Briars opened, Port began working with Yuridia to better understand how their adept powers had changed in the new age, and the two developed a close sisterly bond. Portencia began sensing the sensory futures of four people around the world, and when the Mountaineers used the information she was receiving to identify their locations, they learned that the four people were guardians of hidden places that were supposedly shrines to the icons of Elainnor Heavenwielder. This discovery prompted the release of Part 3 of The Book of Briars.
Through her continued meditations with Yuridia, the two discovered that if they meditated together, their powers became better focused, melding into a clearer vision for both of them. This is a clear departure from how adepts used to work. Yuridia explained that their power in the new age seems to be “much less powerful, but more synergistic,” and likened the new approach to tapping into magicystic energy to “a new way of thinking.”