Level 2: Tier 3

Tier 3 was the final tier of Level 2 of THE FINALS Easter Egg Hunt. It began on November 17, 2023 and ended on March 22, 2024. The theme of the tier was "golden egg" and solving it required combining themes from previous tiers of Level 2.

History

After Tier 2ABC and Tier 2DEF were solved on November 17, 2023, they each led to a page with an image. Tier 2ABC led to the image "tfee_ques" and Tier 2DEF led to the image "tfee_tion", both depicted large, stylized question marks. The first question mark appeared to be made out of gold, while the second resembled the color and texture of eggshell, following the respective themes of Tier 2ABC and Tier 2DEF.

• The dimensions of both images were 1149x635 pixels.
• The background of "tfee_ques" was the solid RGB value: 6, 6, 6.
• Custom metadata of both images pointed to the date November 6, 2015.

On November 27, Rob sent the message: "(Im here all the time… but you are on your own on this tier… you have EVERYTHING… or “in omni scientia”… ._.)" in the #easter-eggs channel of the official THE FINALS Discord server. Hunters pointed out that the phrase was Latin, to which Rob responded: "Well Latin has been part of EVERY password…"

On December 5, Rob told hunters: "hmm, BTW you know you have all the information to solve this level and proceed to the next one, right.? ". When asked to be more specific, he replied: "OFC... your wish is my command.... what links every password on this level...? what are two common threads that are consistent throughout every single tier on this level...?" Hunters quickly singled out the themes of gold, egg, and Latin, which Rob confirmed as correct, but suggested that more could still be identified.

A few minutes later, Rob sent the message: "1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 = ???" After hunters pointed out 15 as the answer, Rob followed up with: "God a' mercy on his soul. And of all Christians' souls. God buy you." This was identified as a quote from William Shakespeare's Hamlet, specifically act 4, scene 5, which focuses on the character Ophelia. A few minutes later, Rob elaborated on the clue, saying: "No, it's actully not that hard... Hamlet = Ophelia = Five Truths... there are five things that have been true trough this entire level... combind them and you have the password..."

Before leaving for the night, Rob confirmed a theory by hunters that tiers 1A, 1B, 1C, and 2ABC could be categorized as "egg" related, and tiers 1D, 1E, 1F, and 2DEF could be categorized as "gold" related, reflecting the question marks in "tfee_ques" and "tfee_tion."

On December 7, 2023, THE FINALS officially launched alongside the 1.2.0 patch notes. In the patch notes, the letters o, l, n, g, g, g, e, e, and d were formatted in bold, and could be rearranged to form "golden egg."

On January 10, 2024, Rob posted a small snippet of the image hunters would receive after solving Tier 3. The dimensions of the snippet were 6x666 pixels, which Rob suggested as relevant after they were pointed out.

On January 12, in response to the topic of geocaching from Level 1, Rob said: "Memory lane, almost like we are back where we started, I wonder why, but I guess William would be proud", likely referring to William Crossing, a key figure from Level 1. At the same time, hunters pointed out that "geocache" mirrored contained "cacoe", an alternate interpretation of the password to Tier 1C, which was "cacoiii" (CaCO₃ with the 3 written in Roman numerals). Rob replied to the findings with: "This is almost too good to be true, it is a miraculum.!" "Miraculum" being Latin for "miracle."

On January 21, "THE_FINALS_Screenshot_024_3840x2160_VVV" was posted to the #official-art Discord channel, the first new image in nearly three months. Hunters quickly analyzed the image and discovered hidden fragments of a QR code in the footer. After the QR code was pieced together, it was scanned to reveal a new URL on the official THE FINALS website: reachthefinals.com/whydidntanyonefindme-aminotimportant.

This page featured a new Nama Tama image named "vvv." Nama Tama images like it have historically been used as sources of supplementary clues during each tier. This time, Nama Tama was holding a golden mirror and wearing a golden Civic Crown.

• The image name "vvv" referenced the Latin phrase "veni, vidi, vici", commonly attributed to Julius Caesar.
• The numbers "15 07 1943" were hidden on the mirror, referencing the birth date of Jocelyn Bell Burnell.
• The signature of German artist Paul Klee was broken up and hidden within the image's background. This was revealed by Rob later and not found by hunters at the time.
  • One of Paul Klee's works is titled "Ab ovo."
• Pairs of numbers were found in each corner of the image that could be decoded using a phoneword cipher and read clockwise to spell "LIGO XVII" (LIGO 17):
  • Top left: 555, 99 (decoded: L, X)
  • Top right: 444, 888 (decoded: I, V)
  • Bottom right: 4, 444 (decoded: G, I)
  • Bottom left: 666, 444 (decoded: O, I)

Jocelyn Bell Burnell and LIGO had one major thing in common: the Nobel Prize in Physics. The winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics is awarded with a gold medal.

On February 3, holtow.com was updated with a new hacked and glitchy background animation. The same fragments of Paul Klee's signature from "vvv" were hidden in certain frames, which is how hunters first identified him as a clue.

On February 6, three fragments of an unknown image were posted to #official-art before being quickly deleted. The next day, Rob published the full image, named "70.68.71.67.72". It contained:

• The Euler's identity equality.
• The string "QjtofWEjcml9MhKBubGc4kBvpV+bZzENOIukEMcpglwgbq6ubU944Y8L0mibTU2JhDtcQ/MNGAygC0XL5VOEQICMjPqZ6q0LYWPC2QCqYr0dONuhErv+5cAmOn01uqWWI0VG0Zv5K4Ru9P8aEAMsPxe82pCyh6TosRTlEtyqgTg=". This was pointed out as looking like an SSH RSA key, to which Rob responded: "Agree, I wonder what the cipher key could be... ._."
• A series of offset pixels, the meaning of which was not known until Rob revealed it after Tier 3 ended. They could have been decoded to "109 105 110 101 114 118 97", which converts from ASCII to "minerva", the Roman goddess of wisdom, justice, law, and victory.
  • Minerva is strongly associated with owls, and an ASCII character representation of an owl is "0v0".

The following day on February 8, Rob published the image "THE_FINALS_Screenshot_025_2880x1620_QB" featuring the 'CASHBOX-QB' outfit. The image contained:

• The binary string "01000011 01001110 01010011 00100000 01001100 01100001 00100000 11000011 10011010 01101110 01101001 01100011 01100001 00100000 01000101 01111000 01110000 01101100 01101001 01100011 01100001 01100011 01101001 11000011 10110011 01101110 00100000 01000011 01001110 01010011 00001010" which converted to the Spanish text "CNS La Única Explicación CNS" meaning "CNS The Only Explanation CNS."
  • The song La Única Explicación was composed by Alejandro Amenábar for the soundtrack of his 1997 film Abre los ojos (English: Open Your Eyes, a phrase Rob has used repeatedly throughout the hunt). This connection was not confirmed by Rob, nor the clue's relevance to Tier 3 specifically as opposed to the game's lore or the hunt as a whole.

On March 14, 2024, Season 2 launched alongside several new store items. Printed on the back of the 'IMPACT CANDIDATE' outfit's face cosmetic were the numbers "109 105 110 101 114 118 97". These are the same ASCII codes from "70.68.71.67.72" that decode to "minerva." This time, hunters identified the conversion and noted Minerva's association with owls.

Solving

On March 22, 2024, hunter Ludonope entered the password: "0v0aurum" and completed Tier 3. This tier took 126 days to solve.

Solution Breakdown

Since Tier 2ABC was based on "gold" and Tier 2DEF was based on "egg", hunters knew that the answer to Tier 3 was likely to be a combination of the two.

There were many clues that pointed towards gold, egg, Latin, mirroring, and the 'GEO' cipher used in previous passwords (G=6, E=3, O=0). Two Latin translations of "egg" are "ovum" and "ovo," but the Paul Klee clue singled out "ovo" as correct. "Gold egg" translated to Latin is "aurum ovo," and applying the 'GEO' cipher provides "aurum 0v0." Lastly, the mirror clues signaled hunters to reverse the order of the words, therefore "aurum 0v0" becomes "0v0 aurum" and thus "0v0aurum."

Gallery

• 

  tfee_ques

• 

  tfee_tion

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  THE_FINALS_Screenshot_024_3840x2160_VVV

• 

  The completed QR code

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  vvv

• 

  Original fragments of 70.68.71.67.72 combined

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  70.68.71.67.72

• 

  THE_FINALS_Screenshot_025_2880x1620_QB

Credits

• Solver(s): Ludonope
• Documentation: Smashel, Lulz, Raid
• Various Contributions in Alphabetical Order:

Further Reading

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