Ob Explorer Notes

The Ob Explorer Notes are a collection of notes discovered near the Ob river in Yamalia, in western Siberia. The notes were discovered somewhere south of Salekhard by Finnish troops in 198 AD. Soon after, they were brought back with them to Borobinsk. While some claim that their true purpose was everything from a lost Mongolian expedition, to a Qing mission to convert the indigenous Siberians to Buddhism, the current consensus based off of its translation is that it was a Jin attempt at contacting the Sibir Khanate in 162 AD, However, this ended in failure as the explorers did not end up in the khanate.

The notes themselves were written in a variant of middle Chinese common during the late Classic Era and pre-Balkan Blight period, which supports the idea of a Jin expedition. The contents of the notes are fairly dry and concise, and appear to be parts of a personal diary of one of the expeditioners. Notably, there are no mentions of any contemporary polities, and most remarks on the expedition's location as they progress appear to be based on the distance to several "targets" mentioned throughout the notes. Over the course of the notes, the handwriting slowly becomes more irregular and indecipherable, culminating in the mysterious final entry that appears to have been written shortly before the author succumbed to the elements and what appears to be steady mental degradation; a sentence that is detached from the main body of the note is written in Tundra Nenets in cyrillic script.

What exactly happened to the expedition after leaving the notes behind remains a mystery. Due to no records in Sibir being discovered that indicate they made it, some suspect they died from starvation or exposure soon after dropping these notes. Others think they could have possibly ventured further into the Arctic, potentially as far north as the Novaya Zemlya archipelago or Bely Island. Although some of the notes sustained damage due to the Siberian climate, almost all of them have survived through both the original notes, as well as copies.

## History of the notes

#### Before discovery

160s AD (?) - The notes are presumably written by a member of a Jin expedition.

##### In Borobinsk

198 AD - a Finnish scouting party discovers the notes in an abandoned dwelling while surveying the area around the Ob estuary. Due to the nature of the notes, they are brought back to Borobinsk for translation.

199 AD - Initial progress is slow due to the lack of immediately available Chinese translators in Finland, however, assistance from the rump Daigo dynasty leads to a partial translation of the notes in Finnish and Greek, as well as copies; the final note, besides the Nenets sentence, is considered unintelligible. The notes are transferred to a private collection owned by a noble.

201 AD - A fire during the Pretender Civil War heavily damages the second and third notes.

209 AD - After the collapse of the first Finnish Empire, the notes are purchased by the University of Constantinople.

##### In Constantinople

211 AD - Translation of the final note is achieved; while its contents are disregarded as psychotic ramblings, some historians note parallels between the events described and Nenets folklore.

212 AD - The notes are stored in the miscellaneous wing of the Center of Cultural Artifacts in Constantinople.

218-228 AD - Several repatriation requests from the Russian Republic and USSR are rejected. Notably, the last two claims were made by an anonymous individual 6 years after the collapse of the USSR. The last one heavily threatens the Byzantine state and demands an immediate return of the notes, claiming that "a great storm of fire will burn you into ash". The message is leaked to the press and subjected to ridicule. Electric copies of the documents are uploaded to the internet.

232 AD - Byzantine authority dissolves following the Solar Flare; all known digital copies are lost. In the months preceding the occupation of Constantinople by the Ottomans, several of the notes are lightly affected by water damage from thunderstorms and a collapse of the CCA's roof.

239 AD - The CCA is refurbished and renamed to the Grand Museum of Curiosities.

491 AD - Following the fall of the second Turkish empire and the rise of Babylon, the notes are purchased by the Friedrich Lehenbauer gallery in Vienna, where it remains today.

## Contents of the notes

Due to the lack of dates or numbering systems, the notes are arranged in the presumed chronological order following their analyses.

#### First note

(idk i have to plan this out first Lol Lmao -Akhenaten)