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I think this one is called "Freed Are Slaves," which is exactly the kind of "saying words but meaning different things" I expect from a Tevinter. There's lies in the carving, too, but I'll come back to that.

Subject aside, I like this. It's workmanlike, but in a good dwarven way. It repeats because the carver knows what she's good at, so she does it again and again. Makes me think she has more than a passing knowledge of the Stone.

That said, there's two sets of hands involved, one old, one new. Take this magister. He's glowing because he's fresh. Newer. Same with his trophies flanking him. Carved down from more complex figures. And the flat next to them - seems plain, doesn't it? The bottom is filled with detail, but this is left an open field? No, that's just what it is now, but there's shadows for a clever eye. So, what was here if not this handsome magister wanting his cod stuffed? Someone else instead of him and his friends, and two more figures on each side. Seven total.

Only the top was changed. The Qunari haven't been touched; that's old wear down there. When it was first done and hundreds of years later, yoked Qunari prisoners still fit. I don't suppose it's for the same reasons.

I can only say the what, not the why. I can guess that someone wanted to be a Tevinter hero and paid to have their face carved on an antiquity. I mean, that's a crime against ancestors where I'm from, but I don't expect Tevinters to obey dwarven honor. Or their own, really. They've been at war a long time, so I understand wanting to seem big. Orzammar's the same with the darkspawn, unfortunately.

Still, shame to lose the original. Not for the seven, for the carver. Good work, this.

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