Chapter 47.1 Reading between the lines
"Don't copy, compete with or compare yourself to others. Their path is not your path, nor should it be. Everyone has a unique gift to offer. What is yours?"
Mary - Frances Winters
It had come to my attention that I was not talking to myself. That my voice was not the only voice in the ether of the mana that spread itself around the world. I was not alone.
But when I listened closer all I could hear was my own voice echoed back to me by other speakers.
Shouting the same words and charging for the privilege of hearing the last words of each sentence.
Infuriated I sat down to write.
To explain.
That those who were listening were not listening to me.
My words were being copied.
And spread without my consent.
My voice, my song, the wake I left on the world, the tales I told and sold, the magic I brought into existence was mine and mine alone.
If you wanted to hear my voice I begged those with ears to listen in the ether, "Please listen to read the account given by the fine and upstanding gentleman who work on the Royal road. Let not yourself be led astray when the words I have to impart are free for all to listen there."
I had even penned a versions for the scribes to include with the library they called the scribble hub. Collected in one place to last the test of time.
Finally, there was a new market I was attempting to enter what place watt pad was new to me and my voice too quiet to be heard over the frenzy of tales told there.
HOWEVER, those brigands who had stolen my tale to call it their own. Those who had the audacity to claim it as theirs, the pirates who stole tales from those told on the Royal Road and sold them as East Tales to them I assigned my messages in bottles words hidden in my tales to hopefully awaken those listening and reading that they were not listening to the author. That if they wanted the wisdom of my words for free they only had to find the many places I sent my bottles full of words.
For those who had spent coins buying such words I can only commiserate with you. But your coins will not reach me with my words stolen as they have been from me. If you want to support and hear the words I still yet hide from others then search for me in the ether that is the mana of this world. Become my patron for you will find me hidden among the multitude of wordsmiths out there for I am and always will be Not Li Mah. Search for my songs, my journeys, my wares and my magic and you will finally find me.
A singer, sailor, merchant mage
And remember that life is the most difficult exam. Many people fail because they try to copy others, not realizing that everyone has a different question paper!
Will you fail or will you succeed?
Who do you want to be?
Yourself?
or
Somebody else?
. . . . . . . . .