I approached the ghosts with exclamation points and thought they would help me through the portal. That's usually the first thing that comes to mind when you see an exclamation point. Going behind him and bypassing him right into the staircase is pretty non-obvious. I thought I had misunderstood something about the mechanics and was learning the interface, so how do I defeat the ghost to get further in
I think it's better to change the design of the starting level altogether. It turns out there is a tutorial room, but I inexperienced ran through it and went straight into battle. If you think about it, you can put straw effigies next to the tutorial portal, it will make it clear that there is training. It would be nice to add a magical aura of luminescence to the portals themselves, because they do not look like portals.