Diary Page #8: Call for Help

Dear Scholars,

I never thought I would write about anything negative as I am usually all fine and the development of Selenwald is going well.

However, due to the current unusual circumstances I have decided to write this particularly personal entry. I'd want to tell you about the distress I'm in at the moment and about how you can help me make the dark clouds go away.

Those present in our Discord may have noticed I haven't posted much about progress this month. Unfortunately, the reason has been that there just wasn't a whole lot of progress being done during that time. This January was one of the roughest months in my life. Let me tell you about what happened.

Death

First, Tinka—my dear cat—died on January 8th after an almost 3-year long battle with lymphoma. Luckily, despite it being an incredibly painful loss, I've managed to deal with grief relatively quickly. After all, this didn't come with a surprise and I had a very long time to prepare for it. It is impossible to ever be fully ready to lose someone we love but at least a small part of me has accepted this long ago. Still, it took me a week to get back on feet.

Unfortunately, I also fell sick at the exact moment I lost Tinka, probably due to my—usually strong—immune system suddenly giving up due to grief. This will become relevant later on in this story.

Famine

Then, unfortunately it turned out my usual client has completely run out of work for me, which I wasn't quite ready for. I would be if not for my recklessness in pursuing the dream of making Selenwald a reality as soon as possible and constantly living on the edge. But I digress. I've been actively searching for new work ever since but due to the terrible shape the game industry finds itself in currently, it's very hard to find any. On top of that so many people are being laid off every week there's an enormous competition for every scrap of work. Finding freelancing contracts has gotten so hard and unsustainable I decided I'm going to ditch it now after 10 years of doing it and try to find a permanent part time position instead. Freelancing has always been wildly difficult but now it's getting even worse, despite my decent rates. I'm really sick of it now and would love a tiny bit of stability. Alas, finding a part-time job is just as hard as finding freelancing contracts so I'm now also considering full-time positions. Not only that but I'm open even to ones that require relocation to a different country. It's a matter of survival.

Unfortunately, my job hunting has been fruitless so far and I ended up in a terrible financial situation. I barely have enough money to live through the first half of February and even if I eventually find work it will likely take at least a month until I see any money. There's just no time because I need this money now. I have friends whom I can ask to lend me money, but they're not rich and I can't borrow a whole lot so I still need to find work as soon as humanly possible. Otherwise I'll be facing homelessness soon. Even though I'd likely have more than one option of where to temporarily stay if such scenario happened, it would still be a lot of hassle, stress, and wasted time - a major slowdown for Selenwald's development.

Pestilence

All these calamities happening in