Jensi owns multiple sets of clothes. It's a lot cheaper than only owning one, and anyway he wants a better idea of exactly what he wants his outfit to do before locking anything in. That's something his tentmate is always talking about, how everything's growing so fast that new things are more limited by ideas than by seamsters. And that's only going to get more true as more people hit opalescent. So Jensi owns pajamas, fabricated ones, instead of a single outfit that never gets dirty and is comfortable in any situation.
His tentmate has an idea for how to get new ideas, and, being an actual seamster, executes on it. It's a little embroidered ball meant to temporarily enweird the effects of magic around it. She passes it to him as she stumbles into sewfall, asking him to go try it out. Even though he's in pajamas.
Well, he did skip dinner reading pocket updates from a bunch of people he respects, and there's a place he's been craving food from. It's technically on another continent, but it's only a few minutes' walk from his tent. And she's liable to be up before he is, wanting some manner of report.
So he slips on some shoes but doesn't bother getting more dressed than that. He brushes an ear with the back of his fingers, a habit from before his earrings were a necessity even inside his own home. Swipes a handful of coins from his hammock-side table. And heads out.
The ball doesn't do anything immediately obvious to his earrings, which isn't very surprising since there's no one else around to talk to. It does turn the next tent's decorations abstract, when it's close enough, and - it's clearly doing something with the portal, as he approaches it. The color changes, and the rustling of the fabric takes on a different pitch.
....Probably, probably this will not actually take him to dumplings, but he should still dip through and then back, even if he then has to trek back home, set down the ball, and return. (He's not just going to leave it lying next to the portal; that would be egregiously stupid.)
He passes a hand through, not the one holding the ball, and feels nothing unusual, and - it's probably for the best that when he tips his head in and his entire body goes slack, the ball winds up on the opposite side of the portal from the rest of him.