Level 2: Tier 3

Tier 3 was the final tier of Level Two 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 and clues from several previous tiers of Level Two.

History

After Tier 2ABC and Tier 2DEF were solved on November 11, 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 appears to be made out of gold, while the second resembled the color of an 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." This theory effectively split Level Two into 2 parts, which combined could seemingly lead to the Tier 3 password.

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 21, "THE_FINALS_Screenshot_024_3840x2160_VVV" was posted to the #official-art channel of the official THE FINALS Discord server, 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 secret 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 had 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 deep within the image's background.
  • One of Paul Klee's works is titled "Ab ovo."
• Pairs of numbers were found in each corner of the image:
  • Top Left: 555, 99
  • Top Right: 444, 888
  • Bottom Left: 666, 444
  • Bottom Right: 4, 444
• These were decoded using a phoneword cipher, where the numbers correspond to letters on a phone's keypad, spelling LIGO XVII, or LIGO 17.
  • Top Left: L, X
  • Top Right: I, V
  • Bottom Left: O, I
  • Bottom Right: G, 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.

Solving

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

Solution

Since Tier 2ABC was based on "gold" and Tier 2DEF was based on "egg", and Rob had confirmed the relevance of those two themes, 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, mirror, and the 'GEO' cipher used in previous passwords (G=6, E=3, O=0). The two Latin words for egg are "ovum" or "ovo," but the Paul Klee clue singled out "ovo" as the correct translation. "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 in the phrase, therefore "aurum 0v0" becomes "0v0 aurum."

Gallery

• 
  tfee_ques
• 
  tfee_tion
• 
  THE_FINALS_Screenshot_024_3840x2160_VVV
• 
  The completed QR code
• 
  vvv

Credits

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

Further Reading

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