A pile of dirt, definitely heavier than Anthony himself, raises from the ground and deposits itself neatly next to the newly dug hole. The hole is not perfectly round, but it's very close.

This would be convenient if he had a way out of this hellhole.

Instead he looks in the book for the map. Treasure?

The map shows that the treasure is that way over there. It's a relatively long walk, his stomach might protest at some point.

Seeing as how he has not in fact broken out in hives or even gained any red patches from rubbing the fruit against his skin, he assesses it to probably be safe. However it's still going to wait before he is totally happy eating it and so he grabs some of the deemed-safe apples and does not touch any berries and hopes the route has more apples if necessary.

Also he looks to see if there's anything plausibly warm like a coat or a jacket, having conveniently appeared… He would rather not freeze himself to death if it turns out there is an icy landscape, thanks.

He can find more deemed-safe apples on the way. As well varieties of other fruits, like the not-as-deemed safe berries.

The map's thermometer gets warmer as he gets closer. The terrain is not particularly interesting or at least not particularly different from the other forest-parts in the island. Nothing that looks like a coat on too.

The thermometer starts starts blinking with heat when Anthony reaches a certain hill, he can see a second freshwater stream that way over there and several large rock formations that other way over here.

… So the thermometer was not in fact a thermometer. Well, that's fortunate, seeing as how he did not in fact find a coat.

Does the thermometer change to be more blinky if he moves in particular directions or is he going to have to start using the totem from where he is?

The latter since the only change is making the thermometer less blinky.

No – he wants blinky, and accordingly stays near the blinky region.

Does the dirt totem actually dig up a particular area if he tries to aim to dig up nearby treasure?

A hole is digged up a few meters to his left with a treasure chest clearly visible from Anthony's point of view.

… Huh.

Can he get to it and open it without falling into the hole?

Yup. The hole isn't even that big. The chest opens by itself with a show of sparkles and a celebratory "ta-da!" sound.

Inside he finds a dozen silver coins, a glowing shell and an archer totem. "It looks like a fierce and skilled warrior." There is also another message in a bottle explaining that the archer totem comes to those that proven themselves as skilled combatants even in their first night.

Anthony takes the (presumably stacked) coins and pockets them, then picks up the archer totem and balances it with the bottle and picks up the glowing shell too.

The shell doesn't produce any special messages, it just looks like a huge snail shell, but glowing with a soft blue bioluminescence. It's pretty.

Then he will look around for his trusty (creepy) treasure chest that seems to follow him places! Is it in sight? He wants to dump these things into it.

His trusty (creepy) treasure chest shows up like a loyal friend (stalker)! Everything fits. What does he want to do with the other treasure chest?

… He doesn't suppose it'll fit into this one, will it?

Of course it does. Just because two things are nearly the same size it doesn't mean one can't shrink and fit inside the other.

Of course it doesn't.

He opens the quest book.

Well, the treasure chest was completed, but now he got a new one:

"Learning how to defend myself was important whenever I wanted to anything at night," narrates Jones in his head, "but it was very scary. But I would train during the day to get ready for the night."

 Goals:

• charge an archer totem with any element. 0/1
  
• Use the standard elemental attack. 0/1
• Hit enemies five times using the archer totem. 0/5

Hint: Quests can be discarded by ripping off the page from the book. Some quests are unique or very rare, while others teach you valuable skills, so be wise not to abuse of this feature.

Time to go back to the altar!

Assuming nothing prevents him from doing so, he then gets the archer totem out of the chest and it onto said altar, then blows onto it.

Well, it isn't actually preventing from doing that task, but on his way back he spots a second altar. Identical to the first one.

Okay! Assuming the chest can be found nearby again he will implement the plan but with less walking.

Well that gets him an archer air totem with an book entry:

This totem is used for combat purposes. It can be used to generate a standard attack made of magical energy by aiming at a target. Or a special attack that homes in on the nearest enemy, this spends the charge and requires a moment to concentrate the magical energy.

He tries shooting at a nearby tree. (He's not sure if it has a limited charge.)

A beam of white light hits it with an awful sound and now the tree is deprived of several branches.