Clue

The final clue was emailed 48 hours after hunters submitted their selfies from QR1 - QR7. The text of the email said:

Congratulations for arriving at the last part of the QR hunt! Even though it's only been a couple weeks, it feels like we've gone on a long journey together. We hope you've been able to have some fun along the way. Attached below is the final clue. These final clues are notorious for being difficult, so inspect things carefully and hopefully in a short while we can declare you as the winner of the 2023 QR Treasure Hunt. Good luck!

Solve

Inspecting the code of the utahtreasurehunts page for clue number 8 shows a “riddle”:

Screenshot 2023-10-25 at 2.03.13 PM.png

“What has keys but can’t open locks?”

Answer: A piano 🎹

In the escape room from QR 7, there were a number of books on a table. They didn’t play any role in the solve for the actual escape room, but one of the books - The Art of War - is the one you need to use to pull the words from the clue image sent via email. They are in the format of

Chapter . Paragraph (or point) . Word

10.21.3 → “formation”
3.17.5 → “that”
4.2.19 → “provided”
10.24.18 → “protect”
13.21.9 → “on”
12.14.14 → “all”
10.2.9 → “sides”