ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

I cleared or nearly cleared Dreadfell (7) and then left to turn in an alchemist quest. Upon entering the floor a second time I received an escort quest for a worried loremaster. According to the quest log this I only received one quest for this floor. This was the 7th escort quest the character received.

This happened to me yesterday. I think I was on Dreadfell (4) after returning from the Eastern continent. I was poking around, looking for the guardian, and the escort quest for loremaster popped up. Obviously, it was quite easy since the floor was already cleared.

if you enter the specified floor the first time, but there isn't enough room for an escort to spawn within your line of sight, then the escort simply won't spawn on that floor until you leave and there-re-enter that floor while there is an empty tile within your line of sight for the escort to spawn on

so if the staircase that leads to the previous floor is inside of a 5x6 psuedo-vault filled to the brim with undead, then the escort won't spawn when you enter the floor that time

and if you're a necromancer with minions, then you'll more often not have escorts spawn the first time because your minions take up space

working as intended, probably

Escorts also don't spawn if there isn't a distant enough point to site the escape portal, so stairs down into an empty room with a door will usually not allow an Escort to appear either.