The second chest at a Traveler's Camp in Windrose is buried at the base of a nearby tree marked with a strip of red cloth. It is not inside the camp itself, and you cannot open it without a Shovel. The starter-island camp in the Coastal Jungle is the clearest example, but the same pattern repeats at every Traveler's Camp whose map icon reads 1/2.
What you need before digging
The buried chest can only be surfaced with a Shovel. If you have not crafted one yet, mark the red-cloth tree on your map and come back after your first copper smelt.
| Requirement | Details |
|---|---|
| Tool | Shovel (crafted at a Workbench) |
| Materials | 3x Copper Ingot, 10x Wood |
| Shovel mode | Dig (press X to cycle modes) |
| Dig indicator | Orange circle on the ground |
| Digs required | Two on the same tile |
Finding the Traveler's Camp and first chest
The starter Traveler's Camp sits on the southwest side of the tutorial island, in a small clearing near the shoreline in the Coastal Jungle biome. You will recognize it by a single tent, a campfire, and a decrepit chest sitting next to the tent entrance.
Open that first chest to collect the Twist of Fancy curio. The note inside reads: "I'll bury the excess gear nearby, beneath the tree marked with a red flag." That line is the trigger for the second chest.
Locating the red cloth tree
From the tent, face west. Within about twenty paces, you should spot a tall, whitish tree (sometimes closer to a pale stump) with a red cloth or flag tied around the trunk. The cloth is the only reliable landmark — the trunk itself blends with other light-colored trees, especially at night.
If the cloth is hard to see, light an oil lamp or skip time to daytime. The red fabric reads as almost pink against dark foliage once the light is up.
Digging up the second chest
Step 1: Equip the Shovel and press X to cycle its mode from Attack to Dig. The tool has four modes (Weapon, Dig, Raise, Flatten), and only Dig produces the orange interaction circle. Swinging the Shovel as a weapon at the dig spot does nothing.
Step 2: Walk to the southwest side of the red-cloth tree and sweep the camera across the base of the trunk until you see an orange circle appear on the ground. That circle confirms you are on a valid dig tile.
Step 3: Dig once. Nothing visible will appear — the chest sits two digs deep. Stay on the same tile and dig a second time to surface it. If two digs produce no result, move a step or two around the trunk and try an adjacent angle.
Step 4: Interact with the chest to loot it. The map icon updates from 1/2 to 2/2 once the chest is opened, which confirms the camp is cleared.
What the buried chest contains
The typical reward set for the starter camp's buried chest is useful early-game consumables for the Coastal Jungle. Loot tables can vary between runs, with some players reporting alternate drops such as Elixir of Cruelty and a Gold Temple Jug, so treat the list below as the standard outcome rather than a guarantee.
| Item | Quantity |
|---|---|
| Healing Potion | 5 |
| Greater Healing Potion | 5 |
| Homemade Gunpowder | 10 |
The healing stack is enough to carry most players through the early boss encounters on the starter island, and the gunpowder feeds directly into firearm crafting.
Why the chest often feels missing
The second chest is one of the most searched-for early-game problems in Windrose, and almost every failure traces back to a small procedural mistake rather than a bug.
| Failure | Fix |
|---|---|
| Shovel in Weapon mode | Press X until mode switches to Dig and the orange circle appears |
| Digging near the tent or note | The chest is not at the note location; go to the red-cloth tree west of camp |
| Only digging once | Dig twice on the same tile; the first dig shows nothing visible |
| Looking at night | Use an oil lamp or skip to daytime so the red cloth is visible |
| Wrong direction from camp | Face west from the tent; the marked tree is not north or south |
The pattern at other Traveler's Camps
Traveler's Camp is a recurring point of interest across the archipelago, not a one-off on the tutorial island. Later camps follow the same layout: one visible chest by a tent, and one buried chest near a red-cloth tree within roughly twenty paces of the tent.
The key difference is that most later camps do not leave the Twist of Fancy note. The written clue only appears in a fraction of procedural placements, so a camp icon can read 1/2 with no journal hint at all. Trust the pattern instead of the note: if the icon shows an unfilled chest count and the visible chest is already looted, sweep the perimeter for a trunk with red cloth and dig on the southwest side of its base.
Once you internalize the red-cloth-tree rule, clearing Traveler's Camps becomes a twenty-second routine: loot the tent chest, walk the perimeter, dig twice, move on.