Fun Scavenger Hunt

Scavenger Hunt

A scavenger hunt game in the website.

Greetings, dear tourist. Can you complete this challenge to find the secret page hidden in this website?

We have left clues scattered all over the place. It will be your task to find them and solve for the URL that will lead you to the secret page.

Here are some starting clues to get you started:

Redundancy is bad. Only the first one gets to stay.
Jackdaws are the code and wizards are the original text.
The keys you need to find are not found.
Puzzles spell out a puzzle.
Clues are often hidden in plain sight.
You don't need to look through the website source code to crack it.
The first clue is "the greatest friends to hang out with." You will need to find the page this refers to. On that page, there will be a puzzle piece, and another clue that leads to the next page. There are 7 pieces in total.
The final answer is in lowercase, and different words should be separated by slashes. For example, if your answer is "Hello World," you should go to https://tofutush.github.io/The-Iron-Ragdoll/hello/world/ (or https://tofutush.neocities.org/hello/world/, if you're on Neocities.).

...

Still stuck? Here are some hints. Revealing all of them will more or less lead you to the truth, so use them sparingly.

Hint 1

Places that clues will not be are pages that are auto-generated, like the characters, the comic pages, the tag pages, and the sitemap. They're typically generated from data and do not have a corresponding file in the source: for example, there is no sparky.liquid or sparky.md file on my computer — 11ty merely made a sparky/index.html out of my data. You can safely ignore them.

Hint 2

The first two clues refer to a substitution code where you swap out each letter for another.

Hint 3

The third clue tells you where to find the substitution key. (The next hint spoils this.)

Hint 4

There are exactly 2 links to 404 pages in the changelog. You might need to look in the old changes too. (The next hint spoils the second clue.)

Hint 5

Find another word for "friends to hang out with." It's one word. (The next hint spoils the second clue.)

Hint 6

Lotus is the symbol of Fanton. (The next hint spoils the third clue.)

Hint 7

"Archer" refers to "Arch-something." "Seven-point star" is the symbol of Westavia. (The next hint spoils the fourth clue.)

Hint 8

Where does this phrase appear? Alternatively, what would you call a pretty-much attainable dream? (The next hint spoils the fifth clue.)

Hint 9

Who is a 3rd generation immigrant? He also went back to the country his grandparents came from. (The next hint spoils the sixth clue.)

Hint 10

What would you call character connections? (The next hint spoils the seventh clue.)

Hint 11

I was lying about one of the places in hint 1. One of those pages do contain a clue, which is the final clue you need.

Can I cheat?

Of course! It should be easy to cheat. I don't mind. But then you'll miss the fun / frustration / disappointment.