Hort; The lower number of turns are for specific effects of those spells.
Masti; Yes, the problem with Zixzax not opening the portal was due to the glitch where you entered early. That cleared a flag which prevented a cutscene conversation from happening, which in turn is preventing the portal from being completely opened. The next update should fix this problem. I don't know of any workarounds.
The Teller of Secrets is not suppose to restock the compendium books.
Heckmanimation; I have one pre-patch save a programmer can check this out with, and QA may have some.
