Does the advice about preventing monsters from following you through the portal apply when no monsters are adjacent? If you're going to step off from the portal then a monster might follow you through, but if you just stumble into the portal and say HOLY CHEESE PURPLE L (or HOLY CHEESE BLACK DRAGON in the Healer quest), it seems to me you shouldn't need to engrave Elbereth on the portal to make a clean getaway unless one of the monsters is generated adjacent to you. Slandor 16:39, June 22, 2010 (UTC)

Yeah that's true, but the Chaotic Quest always contains covetous monsters, and the portal is sometimes right smack in the middle of Vecna's room, with all its attendant L's. Granted, liches are slow, so you should probably have a chance to get away, but I'd still recommend at least having a wand of digging or athame handy. -Ion frigate 04:04, June 23, 2010 (UTC)