diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index a360f92..56e6e69 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-Chest whose content can only be taken from and that offers the same content to each player once. I wrote this because I made treasure hunting game. I wanted players to receive each a reward for finding the chest, not have a first-arrived-takes-all. 
+Chest whose content can only be taken from and that offers the same content to each player once. I wrote this because I made a treasure hunting game. I wanted each player to receive a reward once for finding the chest, not have a first-arrived-takes-all. 
 
 Players are only able to take from it, not put things in, a bit similar to the way bones work.
 
diff --git a/init.lua b/init.lua
index babac9d..c798e07 100644
--- a/init.lua
+++ b/init.lua
@@ -36,7 +36,7 @@ minetest.register_node("quest_chest:chest", {
 		local meta = minetest.get_meta(pos)
     local chestid = quest_chests_storage:get_int("next_id")
     meta:set_string("chestid", chestid)
-    local ids = minetest.deserialize(quest_chests_storage:get_string("ids"))
+    local ids = minetest.deserialize(quest_chests_storage:get_string("ids") or "{}")
     table.insert(ids, chestid)
     quest_chests_storage:set_string("ids", minetest.serialize(ids))
     quest_chests_storage:set_int("next_id", chestid+1)