I'm stuck in the ruins during the desert section. Old man is casting spells and wanting me to open a portal in the middle of them. I check out some of the runes and some of them say activating portal and some of them say nothing happens. there are i believe six or seven towers outlining where the portal is supposed to open and some of them light up in blue but cant get the others to light up or the portal to open. Is there a certain order to this or did I miss something? Any help here would be greatly appreciated.

This is easy, once you know whats going on. The crystal ball beside the portal shows you which switch to hit next. However, all the switches look identical. Drop items beside each of the six switches so you can tell which is which, then use the ball to find which ones to hit.

This was a lot easier in Multiplayer, but that is what you need to do.
Note: Make sure you drop a different item in each one, right up by the switch.

thanks guys for your help, time to go get that damned portal open.

Andrewas beat me too it, but that's the answer! I knew I'd carried the damn fish, slad tongues and garlic around with me for a reason! LOL

Robertthebard- can you really play SoU as a multiplay game??! That'd be great!

Hi Cloudy, and yes. See your private message for details.