Then he'll go do that. Assuming this does not prove complicated in any way maybe there will be time for dinner before the funeral.

It is not especially complicated. It turns out that Curl was in fact the Condemned deserter they were already looking for, although they hadn't known he was a... witch?... or whatever sort of magic user he is. 

Also, while he's here, Quartermaster Garms has his new armor. 

He has time to grab dinner (although he is interrupted a few times by people who want him to say a prayer over their weapons or armor or holy symbols), and then he can head off to the cemetery for the funeral.

He winds up settling on "may this [object] serve the cause of Heaven" pretty uniformly over the [object]s and then off he goes.

Sosiel smiles warmly at him as he arrives. "I'm glad you could make it."

Apart from Sosiel, Blai may recognize a few others in the small crowd: Ember, Seelah, Nenio, Nurah, a few others that he's seen in the Defender's Heart but doesn't know by name.

Oh good, he was sort of concerned he'd be getting thrown together with total strangers in a large group without a defined social organization to govern it. He gravitates familiarityward.

"What an excellent opportunity to learn more about Mendevian culture firsthand!"

Seelah rubs her forehead. "Please keep it down during the actual funeral, alright?"

"Of course. I would not dream of deliberately contaminating my experimental data."

Hopefully that means that not only will he not have to make a speech he also will not have to say things at all.

After a few minutes, Sosiel gathers everyone's attention. "We are gathered here today to remember the brave men and women who laid down their lives when the Temple of Shelyn was attacked. I — I wanted to begin with a song, one of Songbird Mathilde's favorites, 'I Dreamt Last Night.' I'm not much of a singer compared to her, really, but I think she'll understand. Everyone is welcome to join in if you know it, but you don't have to if you don't want to."

She feels so bad for those poor followers of Shelyn, thinking they could trust in their goddess to protect them and dying anyway...

Nurah has a gorgeous, melodious voice, to the point that it's actively noticeable even against the backdrop of everyone else who's singing along.

He does not know the song so he is under no obligation at all to sing!

There are a few short speeches from people who knew the victims, telling stories of Songbird Mathilde arriving just in the nick of time to save an entire squadron or Sculptor Darund attempting to learn poetry or Poetess Verith caring for this speaker's children when she was sick or Songbird Thurisind successfully foiling a cultist plot while unarmed and out of circled spells by convincing two of the cultists to repent. The one with the children starts sobbing halfway through and can't finish; all of them leave some little token by the grave, a flower or a little wooden statuette or a button. There's another song, this one about the dead finding their place in Nirvana, and a prayer that those responsible for their deaths will repent before it's too late—

—and halfway through the prayer, the ground behind the current speaker starts moving—

the fuck is that. Guidance.

It's zombies! The civilians run screaming!

WHY are there ZOMBIES at this ELABORATE SENTIMENTAL FUNERAL SETTING THE DEAD TO REST that is NOT HOW IT WORKS

He casts the Grace he didn't need earlier to get through the crowd without them shouldering into him too much so he can get in channeling range of the zombies, though Sosiel's closer and will probably have the first chance.

He is! He's third-circle, so his channels aren't nearly as powerful as Blai's, but most zombies aren't actually that tough; between his first channel and Blai's, all but the very strongest zombie drop, and it's not too hard to bring down the last one.

For once, an explanation for the zombies is immediately forthcoming: there are traces of powdered onyx still in the grave, the sort that might be shavings left over from cutting down a gem that was slightly bigger than it needed to be, and someone has carved an unholy symbol of Baphomet into one of the corpses.

Fucksake. Blai wrecks the symbol with his mace. Is it a mass grave or was this aimed at someone specific?

This particular grave has everyone who was killed at the Temple of Shelyn when Kenabres fell, and no one else. The Baphomite symbol was carved into the zombie that took a little more work to put down.

"Who had access to this site?"

"The cemetery wasn't locked, anyone could have come here. But — I don't think that timing was coincidence." He curls a fist into a ball. "Killing them was bad enough, but defiling their graves and tormenting their souls is just sick."

"I concur with your suspicion that the timing is unlikely to be coincidental. Zombies are highly unintelligent, and would likely struggle with instructions more complex than simply attacking upon the commencement of the funeral."