I could go for the familiar following him, something the captain would not be expecting...and perhaps might be angry about before realizing he should be truly grateful that out of all the people who knew him....this dragon chose to stay.  :-)<br/><br/>I like the idea for the portal to be controllable and perhaps that just needs to be discovered. We could have certain keyed or attuned items trigger the portal, perhaps, or maybe certain musical tunes could correspond to a code that would allow the gate to open?