Collector
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Collector is a Quest in Escape from Tarkov.
Contents
Dialogue
| “ | Ah, it's you. Local troubleshooter, huh? Yeah, I know about you. And you'd better learn one thing. You are not the only one. There are some other serious people out there, perhaps they could be even more skilled than you are. They're walking around, minding their own business, and from to time leave some stuff behind. And the thing is - I need those items. I know it's a hard find, but the reward won't disappoint you. | „ |
Requirements
- Complete all quests. The following are not required and do not need to be completed:
Objectives
- Find an Old firesteel in raid
- Handover the Old firesteel
- Find an Antique axe in raid
- Handover the Antique axe
- Find a Battered antique Book in raid
- Handover the Battered antique Book
- Find a FireKlean gun lube in raid
- Handover the FireKlean gun lube
- Find a Golden rooster in raid
- Handover the Golden rooster
- Find a Silver Badge in raid
- Handover the Silver Badge
- Find a Deadlyslob's beard oil in raid
- Handover the Deadlyslob's beard oil
- Find a Golden 1GPhone in raid
- Handover the Golden 1GPhone
- Find a Jar of DevilDog mayo in raid
- Handover the Jar of DevilDog mayo
- Find a Can of sprats in raid
- Handover the Can of sprats
- Find a Fake mustache in raid
- Handover the Fake mustache
- Find a Kotton beanie in raid
- Handover the Kotton beanie
- Find a Can of Dr. Lupo's coffee beans in raid
- Handover the Can of Dr. Lupo's coffee beans
- Find a Pestily plague mask in raid
- Handover the Pestily plague mask
- Find a Raven figurine in raid
- Handover the Raven figurine
- Find a Shroud half-mask in raid
- Handover the Shroud half-mask
Rewards
| “ | Have you got it all? Fine. Take your present, just as promised! | „ |
Guide
| Related Quest Items | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Icon | Item name | Amount | Requirement |
|
Old firesteel | 1 | Handover item |
|
Antique axe | 1 | Handover item |
|
Battered antique Book | 1 | Handover item |
|
FireKlean gun lube | 1 | Handover item |
|
Golden rooster | 1 | Handover item |
|
Silver Badge | 1 | Handover item |
|
Deadlyslob's beard oil | 1 | Handover item |
|
Golden 1GPhone | 1 | Handover item |
|
Jar of DevilDog mayo | 1 | Handover item |
|
Can of sprats | 1 | Handover item |
|
Fake mustache | 1 | Handover item |
|
Kotton beanie | 1 | Handover item |
|
Can of Dr. Lupo's coffee beans | 1 | Handover item |
|
Pestily plague mask | 1 | Handover item |
|
Raven figurine | 1 | Handover item |
|
Shroud half-mask | 1 | Handover item |
Riddle
Until April 19 2019 there was a hidden riddle in the the quest title, dialogue and reward text.
Quest Description
Solving the riddle starts with the quest description, the first paragraph of the hex encoded text equating to At interchange we were at bash zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcba pryz1uts8q5onmlkj3hgfe4c2a and the second one to 6t th1 1na of 8t 6ll, 2ou must 58ll th1 58ll6 and UrAgCe DEroRRiM. The first uncovered paragraph indicates the existence of Atbash ciphered text, the text zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcba pryz1uts8q5onmlkj3hgfe4c2a equating to abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz kiba1fgh8j5lmnopq3stuv4x2z, a clear substitution pattern. Using the aforementioned substitution pattern, we can take the second paragraph found in the quest description and translate it to 6t the end of it 6ll, you must kill the kill6, a clue which will become useful later along with the UrAgCe and DEroRRiM texts.
Quest Reward Text
The first operation to be applied to the quest reward text seems obvious, either from the DEroRRiM (MiRRorED if mirrored) text or from the nature of the text, it being a simple mirror of the whole text block. After a mirror, the paragraph First truth is, at the base you see the sum of 4 and 6, second truth is that thirteen is false number is revealed, making us understand that the number 13 should be eliminated in all further findings and that the base being used for them will be 64, instead of the human-used 10. Thus, after removing the already used text, removing the number 13 and decoding the text from Base64, we can observe the following text: thirteen is rot ten number as well, rotate yourself out of it which indicates the use of the rot13 cipher. After another removal of our used text and a rot13 decryption we can observe the following lines: Affine brought you two of the first numbers coupled with vjg pwodgt qh uycp ykvjjqnfu hkxg and how many steps should emperor of rome walk, one or three coupled with bgufs efbmjoh xjui txbot, zpv xjmm gjoe zpvstfmg jo b trvbsf pg gpvs / wkhuh lv d vshfldo sodfh wr uhyhdo brxuvhoi lq d vkdsh ri wxeh, wkh vkruw zdb wx.eh which indicate the Affine and Caesar ciphers respectively. After decyphering the Affine encoded text with the values a = 1; b = 2 we obtain the number of swan withholds five and after decoding the Caesar encoded texts with a shift of 1 and 3 respectively we obtain after dealing with swans, you will find yourself in a square of four / there is a special place to reveal yourself in a shape of tube, the short way tu.be, both clues helping later.
Piecing Everything Together
To continue, we'll start with the remainder of our quest reward text: 266b2269726c336c4261 a hex encoded string which we should not decrypt for now. The clue the number of swan withholds five shows that 2 (a number which looks similar to a swan) should be replaced by the number 5, doing so in our hex text and then finally decoding it, indicated by the square of four clue, giving us VkUiul3lEa. Looking closely at the obtained string, we can observe the existence of the word killa within it, the clue 6t the end of it 6ll, you must kill the kill6 telling us to remove it from the text. Doing so will finally reveal the text VUu3E which if attached to the UrAgCe string obtained earlier, and being added onto a YouTube short link, as indicated by there is a special place to reveal yourself in a shape of tube, the short way tu.be revealing a YouTube video.
The Pastebin
Approximately a week after finding the first YouTube video, a Pastebin linksurfaced in the video description. For ease in describing the decryption progress, we'll split the document in 4 sections, one for each paragraph and will start with the last one since it exposes the 1st step within the process.
Paragraph 4
The paragraph is Base64 encoded, but before decoding it, all characters that are found surrounded by a + character need to be deleted and the contents need to be set aside to form the string 524f543437 which equates to ROT47 in hexadecimal. After the removal of the odd characters, the text File119111====T10p2 ...Be advised, we've got... (transmission interrupted)====end of file is revealed. We can note down the "file number" as the rest is just flavor text.
Paragraph 3
Using the former ROT47 clue we can solve this paragraph, applying a ROT47 decryption after a Base64 decode yielding the content we need, but slightly malformed. To clear this malformation every 22nd character in the original string needs to be removed (all of the characters being a 0), thus revealing File108070107==== T10p1 Overseer, this is team 8 unit 13 Foreman callsign. We got ambushed, requesting backup.... ====end of file. Like the last paragraph, we can ignore all text besides the file number.
Paragraph 2
After a reverse of this paragraph we can observe the string m1560red})>/|:\<({4lphab3t (originally t3bahpl4{(<\:|/>)}der0651m) is an outlier and will serve as a clue later, so we can remove it. The rest of the paragraph (still reversed) can simply be Base64 decoded to find File086078121==== OVRp2 ...Possible locals ambush. ====end of file. As with the former paragraphs, keep the file number and ignore the rest.
Paragraph 1
As with the former paragraphs we start with a simple Base64 decode. We can now take the m1560red})>/|:\<({4lphab3t clue and use it as a substitute alphabet while ignoring the importat numbers, giving us the File082056117==== OVRp1 team 10, recon detail, moving to polikhim 1-12. backup call from team 8, unknown detail.... ====end of file string, which again, can be disregarded besides the file number.
Finale
Concatenating all file numbers together yields 082056117086078121108070107119111. If we group the characters and get their coresponding ASCII character, we obtain R8uVNylFkwo which leads to the final YouTube video. The video has a few game keys in its description.The key are all activated and not available anymore.
Trivia
The second found video is reused into an official short movie called "Raid".
