# Talk:Spellbook of detect monsters
Is it possible to detect the guards of a vault?
I tried the protection racket.
As i heard someone counting money i castet detect monsters but the guard is not visible and therefore i couldnt locate the vault.
I tried this with a level 1 wizard.
Any idea?

I recall the guard being placed outside the regular level area somehow for most of the time, and he only appears on the "normal" part of the level to lead you out of the vault. This means you cannot detect vaults this way, unfortunately. --Bcode 23:32, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
Just to clarify, the guard doesn't exist until he is created while you are in the vault, i.e. he has no existence in the code.  This is important, since it's not the same guard that appears repeatedly, whether or not you killed the last one.
Also, detect monsters can occasionally find monsters randomly generated in vaults, but this is by no means reliable.  Obviously gold detection or a vault teleporter is much more desirable. -Ion frigate 02:48, 5 March 2012 (UTC)