Treasure Maps

Treasure maps drop from monsters as loot — an uncommon find, and tougher monsters and higher Luck yield higher-level maps. Each map leads to a buried treasure chest guarded by monsters. A full treasure hunt uses Cartography, Mining, Lockpicking and Remove Trap.

The process

1. Get a treasure map.
2. Decipher the map with Cartography, using deciphering tools.
3. Once deciphered, travel to the marked spot.
4. Dig up the treasure chest with a pickaxe.
5. Kill all the treasure guardians that spawn.
6. Pick the chest's lock.
7. Remove the trap protecting the chest.
8. Loot it.
9. Destroy the chest for a chance at keeping the chest container itself.

Map levels

Maps come in six levels, hued in the matching metal colors:

	Level	Color	Cartography min skill	100% decode chance at
	1	Regular	-3	57
	2	Shadow	41	101
	3	Copper	61	121
	4	Bronze	81	141
	5	Verite	100	160
	6	Valorite	111	171

Deciphering

You need the Cartography skill and deciphering tools (crafted via Tinkering). Tools made from colored metals grant a bonus to your effective Cartography skill and speed up decoding:

	Tool material	Cartography bonus
	Iron	0
	Shadow	+5
	Copper	+10
	Bronze	+15
	Verite	+20
	Valorite	+25

Deciphering is done in steps: use the tools on the map (or the map's context menu). Each successful attempt advances the decode progress by a random percentage (better tools add extra progress); a failed attempt makes no progress. Every attempt consumes one use of the tools. At 100% deciphered the map shows the treasure location, marked with a red pin.

Digging up the treasure

Once a map is deciphered, anyone holding the map can dig up the chest — you do not need to be the decoder, but you do need enough Mining skill:

Colored pickaxes raise your effective Mining skill while held, so a good pickaxe can make up for missing skill.

You must hold a pickaxe in your hands and stand still while digging — moving, casting or using a skill cancels the dig. How close to the exact spot you must target depends on your Mining skill:

While digging:

• On every third digging tick your pickaxe loses one use (a full dig takes about 8 uses — bring a fresh pickaxe).
• Mining skill gain can trigger on these ticks, up to 10 gain chances per map.

Guardians

When the chest surfaces, treasure guardians spawn around it: 4 for level 1–2 maps, 5 for level 3–4, and 6 for level 5–6. All guardians must be killed before the chest can be picked.

Watch out while looting: each item you take from the chest has a 10% chance to spawn another ambusher.

The chest

The treasure chest works like a dungeon chest of the same level: the lock is a pin mini-game requiring Lockpicking 0 / 40 / 60 / 80 / 100 / 120 for levels 1–6. While locked it carries a random Explosion or Poison trap (power 13 x level) that can trigger on failed picks; once picked, a final Explosion trap with a power of 25 x level arms and should be removed with Remove Trap. Magic (Unlock, Telekinesis) does not work on treasure map chests.

The chest disappears 3 hours after being dug up, so finish the job.

What's inside

Everything scales with the map level (1–6):

• 1,000 gold per level
• 4 magic scrolls per level and 5 magic items per level, stronger at higher levels
• Several piles of reagents (40–60 each) and gems — more per level
• A stack of crafting resources, better material but smaller stacks the higher the level: Regular (1), Shadow (2), Copper (3), Bronze (4), Verite (5), Valorite (6)
• One guaranteed special item — skill scroll, skill cap ball, pigment or mastery gem, rolled at the map's own level on the special item table

Unlike a dungeon chest, the special item is guaranteed rather than a chance, which is what makes high-level maps worth the guardians.

Chest destruction

• Only the player who picked the lock may destroy the chest (context menu → Destroy). All remaining contents are lost.
• There is a very small chance the chest instead lands in your backpack as a "Treasure Chest" container in its original color hue (regular iron, shadow, copper, bronze, verite or valorite).

Storing maps