The Vault allows you to store Food, Gold, or Oil to hide from enemies. In other words, resources stored in the vault cannot be looted by the enemy under any circumstances.
You can only store one resource in the vault at a time.
You have to wait one day to withdraw the resources that you put into the Vault (Unless you pay an early withdraw fee in Crowns).
Interest gained is stored back into the vault thus increasing the vault's official capacity. In other words, storing 6000 oil becomes 6300 at 5% interest. You must withdraw to gain the interest as interest is only added once (after 24 hours).
Museum artifacts that add interest only need to be enabled when the 24 hour clock ends; so enabled exactly 24 hours after you store your resources.
Especially at lower levels, the Vault has a relatively high amount of hitpoints. Use this to your advantage by placing it in areas where attackers will become distracted by it.
Vault Capacity: Increases Food, Gold, and Oil storage capacity in the Vault by 70%(10 levels). Only applies to the base oil storage capacity (not the 6,000 then additional 2,000 storage bonus acquired in the Library).