Exactly. They don't do anything really creepy. They act weird and cult-like on the surface and that's what they are in reality. If Paolini really wanted to be creepy, he could research what actual cults do. Show the cult acting all nice and love bombing Murtagh, who hasn't had anybody who actually cares about him for a while now. Show people being taken care of, all of them happy. A completely normal village. But Bachel's clearly hiding something. When that woman dreams about the White Mountain, Murtagh could witness her being quickly taken away, and when he asks about her, no one would admit that she ever existed. When Murtagh asks about the creepy dreams: "Oh, it's nothing. The smoke affects everyone this way." And then there's the gradual encroaching of boundaries, getting Murtagh more and more into their fold, trying to convince him to first join a hunt, then share his dreams, then visit the well, then join them. Make them almost convince him that the way to be safe, to free all people, to make sure no one goes through what he went through, is to follow them. The scary thing about cults is that they can seem normal on the outside, but are wacked on the inside. If we see something obviously creepy, and it turns out to be obviously creepy, then it's not scary, it's boring.