The First Expedition: The Alchemist's Vault

Subeen valiantly struggles on the edge of life and death!Elodie deftly slices her way through the vines and imposes herself between Subeen and the slobbering maw of the vine monster.Elara's spell explodes, sending razor-sharp ice shards into the monster's back, ripping through both vines and the central mass. The creature's body generously shields Subeen and Elodie from harm.

As the vine spasms and shifts, Nyx struggles to land a solid hit!

The monster bears down on Elodie, but she stands her ground, shielding Subeen with unwavering courage. It tries to snap at her, but its great big eye goes wide as she dodges the attack effortlessly.

Elodie's swift lunges and thrusts puts an end to the battered vine monster. It last remaining vine that was wrapped around Nyx goes limp and curls up on the ground. The green colour begins to fade to brown, and the leaves begin to wither and die. Meanwhile, Elara's quick thinking keeps Subeen from fading to the other side, and the barbarian shudders awake at the smell of the Lady's potent salts.Once your immediate situation is resolved, a quick scan about the room reveals that the monster was perched inside a dome-shaped alcove embedded in the ceiling. A chandelier of tarnished silver is crushed into the dome, but the silver may be salvageable. In addition, the three masses that were hanging among from the ceiling are now scattered in the corners of the room. Elara can still see the outline of some magic contained in one of them.

There are still four ways out of the room:

North: A hallway, cut from the onyx and similarly polished.
East: A threshold descends downward into a stair. A dim blue glow radiates from below.
South: A pair of wooden doors, swollen with rot and water damage, are closed. A heavy iron bar barricades the door from this side.
West: The exit to leave the dungeon.

Nyx estimates that the mangled remains of the chandelier might be equivalent to 200 silver coins in raw silver if you could pry it down from the ceiling (10 feet above the ground).

The four companions of The Valerian Expedition make a tactical retreat from the dungeon, leaving behind the three masses with the dead vine monster for now. They set up camp under the light of the Aurora and tend to Subeen's wound, cleaning out the acid, removing thorny debris, and bandaging her torn skin. Subeen has seen worse, but it still takes a solid four hours before feeling and colour returns to her wounded leg, and she is able to put her full weight on it. The time passes without incident, both outside and inside the dungeon, at least as far as Nyx's familiar can tell.Elodie works to tracks down a source of water. Placing her ear to the ground, she follows the vibrations to a drainage grate that leads to many storm drains runs beneath the surface of the World City. Lifting the grate, she finds such a storm drain, a cylindrical stone tunnel with incredibly smooth walls exactly 5 feet in diameter. Knee-deep water rushes through it with a dull roar. You notice that the storm drain looks like it will travel directly under The Alchemist's Vault - perhaps it provides another way into the dungeon.