Eyes Wide With Fear is a two-stage side quest in Windrose that sends you chasing a dead man's diary across a single island, then asks you to dig up the chest he buried before things went wrong. The twist the quest text never mentions is that opening the chest triggers an ambush, so preparation matters almost as much as knowing where to dig.
What you need before starting
The Madman's Chest is buried, so a Shovel is mandatory. If you do not have one yet, crafting requires 3x Copper Ingot and 10x Wood at a Workbench, which in turn means you need a Pickaxe, a Kiln, and a Furnace built first. Heading to the quest marker without a Shovel is wasted travel time because nothing at the dig site is interactable otherwise.
Combat prep matters too. The Drowned that spawn after you surface the chest hit harder than typical early-game enemies, so bring 3–4 Healing Potions (Great Healing Potions if you have them) and upgrade your Copper Axe and Pickaxe before the trip if you are still in the early tiers.
| Requirement | Details |
|---|---|
| Shovel | 3x Copper Ingot + 10x Wood at a Workbench |
| Prior crafting stations | Pickaxe, Kiln, Furnace |
| Healing | 3–4 Healing Potions minimum |
| Recommended gear | Upgraded Copper Axe and Pickaxe |
Stage 1: Uncover the survivor's story
The first objective is the easy half. A quest marker points you to a chest on the island, and because Windrose uses procedural generation, the exact position shifts between playthroughs while the relative placement to island points of interest stays consistent. Follow the marker, open the chest, and take the Diary Fragments.
Step 1: Travel to the first quest marker on your map and locate the chest it highlights.
Step 2: Loot the Diary Fragments from inside the chest.
Step 3: Open your Journal with J and read the fragments. The quest marker updates to a new location on the same island, pointing toward the Madman's Chest.
Stage 2: Find and dig up the Madman's Chest
The updated marker sits on the same island, in a small clearing framed by several large trees. When you arrive, look for scattered skeleton remains on the ground. The chest is buried roughly at the center of that skeleton cluster, not at the edges, which is the single most common reason players dig the wrong patch and assume the quest is bugged.
Before you dig, make sure your Shovel is in Dig mode. Press Z or X to cycle it. In weapon mode, the tool just swings in the air, and no dig prompt appears. A small sparkle effect on the ground is the visual cue that you are standing on the correct tile. If you see sparkles, dig; if you do not, walk inward toward the densest part of the bones and try again.
Step 1: Equip your Shovel and cycle it to Dig mode with Z or X.
Step 2: Travel to the updated quest marker and find the skeleton cluster in the clearing between the large trees.
Step 3: Walk to the center of the bones and watch for ground sparkles or the dig prompt to appear.
Step 4: Dig. An object labeled "an old chest" surfaces. Do not interact with it yet.
The Drowned ambush
Interacting with the surfaced chest spawns multiple Drowned enemies immediately. This is a scripted encounter, not a bug, and the enemies arrive in a group rather than one at a time. Trying to loot mid-fight is how players die next to the reward, because the chest stays locked behind combat until the spawns are cleared.
Pull back slightly after the first interaction, use terrain to avoid getting surrounded, and burn through potions as needed. Once every Drowned is down, you can open the chest cleanly, and the quest completes.
Rewards
Reward values differ slightly between game versions, so your payout may not match another player's exactly. Both reported reward sets are listed below.
| Reward set | Contents |
|---|---|
| Version A | 100 XP, 10 Guinea, 1 Tumbaga Ingot, 1 List of Essentials |
| Version B | 5 Guinea, 4 Silver Ingot |
Silver Ingots and Tumbaga Ingots both feed into mid-tier crafting, which makes them the most practical part of the payout. Guinea is modest currency that will feel light relative to the effort invested in getting a Shovel, a Furnace chain, and enough healing to survive the ambush.
Common failure points
| Symptom | Cause and fix |
|---|---|
| No dig prompt appears | Shovel is in weapon mode. Press Z or X to switch to Dig mode. |
| Digging everywhere finds nothing | You are at the edges of the skeleton cluster. Move to the center and watch for ground sparkles. |
| Marker seems empty or skeletons are missing | Zoom the map in fully to pin the exact tile; the dig point is there even without visual markers. |
| Chest says "There is nothing else here" | Click the chest name itself to open it, not the flavor text. The ambush triggers on open. |
| Marker never updates after looting the first chest | Open the Journal (J) and read the Diary Fragments; the update fires on read, not on pickup. |
The quest officially completes once you loot the old chest after clearing the Drowned, at which point the Eyes Wide With Fear entry is removed from your active quest list and the rewards appear in your inventory.