Would Carrhae be able to make an insight check to know if we're confined to these barracks or if we can move around the area?

“I apologize for not making you all aware of the spells I can cast,” He answers Mercy quietly and back in her tongue. “I panicked a bit, considering how... Loud you were snoring, I had to think of something to save our hides.” He looks around the room, eyeing the cultists, then looks at Strife and Trini. “Perhaps they can put on a show for them, keep them distracted so you can slip away, yeah?”

By the sharp and cruel tips
upon the iron spires of Dis,
Truly do I wonder
who the hell is this?

Strife figured it just couldn't be the actual guy from Womford. They had stolen the Dwarven books back, and he would correctly guess who was responsible, and he would be seriously enraged about it. Since he was vouching for the group instead of denouncing, this had to be somebody in disguise. Who?

Strife invested her kisses with particular zeal, and was pleased that by the conclusion of the second, her partner was welcoming and even reciprocating somewhat. Her pride had been wounded back in Womford by the manner in which Veracity's charms were rejected. That bargeman's doppelgänger now seemed to appreciate Strife's allure in her true guise, which afforded a measure of vindication.

Carrhae spoke up to bolster their collective fiction, and in so doing, elevated Strife's status to that of spouse. The guards seemed to think her new husband's name was Shoalar. Strife saw Trini nearby and Mercy was extricating herself from the undercarriage hammock. When she felt a hand take hold of her own, she looked down to see the most adorable Tiefling youth. What?! Where had she come from? Strife paused to assess whether this was all unfolding within a bizarre dream of hers, but it felt as real as the gentle pressure squeezing her hand. She took a quick census: still six of them, but Barry and Daewen were missing, replaced by the Genasi and Tiefling. Could the shy and preternaturally quiet girl be Daewen?

Which would make her husband... Barry! Strife recalled when he had cautioned her against trying to deceive a deceiver. He and Daewen were both Harpers, so having an ability to assume a disguise would certainly help with the secret agent stuff. Hoping her assessment correctly accounted for her missing companions, Strife joined the throng entering the keep.

During their brief meeting with that paragon of graciousness known as Grimjaw, Strife looked on with concern as Mercy took out her bow. Please oh please don't start settling scores in here, Strife thought. As the group settled into the barracks, Strife noted that Trini was carefully slinking off toward one of the doors for possible snooping. And when Mercy explained she needed a distraction, Strife replied in Infernal, "Stella's got this."

Strife turned her attention to her cute daughter and stooped forward slightly to address her in a loud obnoxious voice. "Now, Dawny, my angel, we are guests here. These are friends of daddy's. I know how upset you get, but you are NOT setting fire to anything here. Is that understood?" Strife paused for a moment, pretending to receive Dawn's telepathic reply. "Well I know, and I'm sorry, but you don't look after them. You fed little Squiffy those nails, and you disemboweled Thunderpaws and stained the carpet, and of course you immolated Hoppy. Now, no mother could be more proud, you have an amazing career ahead of you as an executioner, inquisitor, or perhaps a butcher - I know how you love to cut up animals. But right now, we simply can't have another pet. It's already crowded in the carriage." Pausing for effect, Strife then continued, "No! Absolutely not! Where did this come from? Don't you- no, Dawny, my precious child, understand that if you don't behave, nice Mr. Grimjaw will kill all of us, and then there's no more torturing fun for any of us. Shoalar? Shoalar! Get over here! Talk to you daughter. She's making threats again unless we let her make a Dwarf scream. Honey, there aren't even any Dwarves around here, be reasonable."

Expending Inspiration to roll with Advantage:
Deception (+7): 21
Deception (+7): 14

Once Strife starting speaking obnoxiously loud, Zephyr lost about two years of his life span, but it was one way to get the cultists attention and once called out, he would follow through.

”Again?!” He exclaimed, coming up to his wife and daughter. “Dawn, do we have to send you to the institution again?! You know your mother cried days when we had to send you off!”

((dunno if I gotta roll for dis or not and idk if I’d get advantage since Strife is kiiiinda helping me? I’ll roll twice just in case))

Deception: 7 5

((oof I hope I didn’t have to roll deception))

Carrhae looks around the room and scans the cultists that are keeping an eye on them to see if they're making a point to keep the six of them in these barracks. 

Insight:20

"Sir, it appears that someone important is on the way here and it might go poorly for us if Dawn is causing a disturbance. Would you permit me to take her outside and see if we could get some training swords for sparring. She's wanted to spar with me for a long time and it might do her some good to get the energy out of the system. Carrhae really hopes that Strife and Barry are picking up what she's putting down.

Dawn loudly stomps off in a huff, trying to further the distraction.  Reaching into her pack, she pulls out her flint and steel and slumps down in a pile right in front of a crowd of onlookers, and starts to flick sparks from her flint onto the ground. Sulking.

”Wow....kids these days, amiright?!” can be heard murmuring amongst the crowd.

....then distraction is working quite well. 

Carrhae: Oh, it's easily noticable that everyone is wandering around the keep unattended. In fact, they seem to have regular rotations of various activities. Speaking of watch, a very important looking priestess is approaching from the Temple to the Barracks. She will be here within moments.

Trini: The door is unlocked. No one noticed you opened it, you did it so smooth and noiseless, the door even cracks open a bit, revealing what looks like an armory, full of weapon racks and other like supplies. 

Daewen: You're not really sure what the water cultists are doing, or what they do, except try and recruit people into their cause. 

The cultists in the barracks all look at you with a combination of curiosity, frustration, or annoyance. Some of them begin to get up with a not so happy look on their face when the priestess opens the door, and everyone snaps to some sort of attention.

"Shoalar!" High Priestess Drosnin says. "You didn't tell me you were bringing guests today. No matter." She looks over the barracks and it's occupants. "All of you. Come. It is time for indoctrination." She stands aside and lead you all to the chapel. The keep’s chapel contains plain wooden pews facing a large altar at the west end of the room. No idol hints at what deity is venerated here. A crude symbol is painted on the wall above the altar, resembling an X with a horizontal bar linking the bottom limbs. Several straw pallets lie near the chapel door. Everyone is seated. There are guards inside and outside of the chapel.

Drosnin begins an enthusiastic, relentless oratory. She launches into an exhaustive sermon about the “truth of the deep waters” and the “great revelations” to come. The two guards by the door her roll their eyes and look bored, but Drosnin keeps going and going, brooking no interruptions.

She drones on for two hours before dismissing you all.

Carrhae notices that some of the cultists seemed less than enthused when the High Priestess entered the room and something clicked in her mind when she saw the guards rolling their eyes when Drosnin was delivering her sermon. For the remainder of the day, Carrhae would try to figure out if not all of these cultists shared Drosnin's enthusiasm towards water.

C'mon boobs.

Insight: 9

Mercy’s eyes widened at the display her friends put on, trying her damnedest to look frightened rather than amused. She started edging towards the door, but stopped when the priestess entered. Listening to her demand for everyone to attend this “indoctrination,” the Tiefling visibly grimaced and muttered under her breath. “I ain’t here fer church.” She grudgingly followed the group, but stopped outside and sat down beside one of the guards. “I didn’t sign up fer no preachin’.” She pulled out a whet stone and her daggers and set to work maintaining the weapons.

Daewen re-casts Disguise Self on herself, renewing the clock on her Dawn disguise.

Updating soon. How about some more insight rolls as you guys are herded off back to the barracks?

Sure

Insight:17

(Mercy’s not going back there, but it couldn’t hurt to be alert.)

Insight: 20

Insight: 14

When working class Mercy parted company from the believers, Stella said, "Really, Shoalar, can you believe that girl? Did you see the way she threw herself at Mr. Grimjaw? Disgraceful. I really don't know what you were thinking when you decided to hire her, apart from your weakness for - well, you know. She only cares about herself, unlike you. You believe in causes greater than self aggrandizement, and that's what is so magnetic about you. You're a leader. A doer. Everybody here knows it. And you have passed that fire and passion on to Dawny. Mostly the fire. You take such good care of her on your biannual weekend visits, I'm sure she can't fathom how much you really do cherish being the very best of absent fathers."

During the sermon, Strife paid close attention and even scribbled some notes about what seemed to be the most salient points. She tried to connect the teachings to any of the other doomsday cult lore she had researched to draw useful inferences. Did her sermon make any sense? Was Drosnin completely insane, or well anchored in the fundamentals of the metaphysical? What did she want and how would she get it?

Arcana (+3): 6
History (+3): 7

Afterward, she approached the priestess. "I just wanted to say 'wow' and 'thank you'. That was unlike anything I've heard before. With the moment of crisis approaching, I know you need good people, and Shoalar would make a fantastic junior priest. He's very clever and he's not really challenged in his current role, so definitely keep him in mind. Or do you have to be able to read well for that job?"

Deception (+7): 11
Persuasion (+7): 8

On the way back to the barracks, Strife tries to puzzle out what exactly they might be amassing cultists here for. Training? A ritual? As sacrifices?

Insight (+1): 5
Investigation (+2): 9

During the sermon, Mercy put her weapons away and pulled her hood low enough to cast shadows over her face and make it appear she'd fallen back asleep. She listened to the sermon, scrutinizing every word for important information. Meanwhile, she kept her eyes open to see if anything happened outside while all the cultists were otherwise engaged.

Arcana: 20

History: 8

Perception: 8

During the sermon, Dawn kept looking over at the burning candles lighting the church, and grinning in excitement....causing those fellow cultists sitting around her to be on the edges of their seats with nervousness.  All the while, she was memorizing the faces of those around her, preparing to take on their own visages when the time was right.

Insight roll for the journey back to the barracks: 16

Carrhae/Zephyr/Daewen: You get the distinct positive vibe, looking around, that this place is NOT the finishing point of the Cult. This place appears to be a training and internment camp. Recruits come here, and get shipped off to..someplace else. You're sure of it.

Mercy: Yup. Definately a Cult headquarters of some sort.

Strife: Not able to make much sense of what High Priestess Drosnin was lecturing about, you go up to her and attempt to talk to her. When you finish speaking, she looks at you as if you insulted her mother. "Shoalar is ALREADY a high-ranking Crushing Wave cultist! He shouldn't have TIME to be a "junior priest". If he's not being "challenged" in his "current job" then we have a problem, don't we? I shall bring this up with Grimjaw. Thank you for bringing this to my attention." Leaving, you weren't able to figure out why all these cultist are here, and realized you probably got Shoalar in very big trouble. 

Mercy: This is what you were able to interpret from the sermon: Crushing Wave cultists are patient and stoic. They understand the value of outlasting formidable foes and slowly eroding their defenses. However, they are far more flexible and opportunistic in their overall philosophy. Like a flood that seeks the weak point in a levee and then bursts through with ever-growing strength, water cultists are quick to sense an opening and then act to exploit it. This philosophy of pragmatism and opportunism means that the Crushing Wave is the most mercenary of the four elemental cults. Drosnin also mentioned the Water Cult's "Prophet", but nothing more.

Night is approaching soon, so what would you all like to do in the meantime?

After their conversation with the priest, Zephyr only stared at Strife with a look that can only be surmised as disappointed.

Dawn will hang on to Mommy Strife like the docile teenage daughter that she is.....interspersed with plenty of eye rolls and sighs every time a fellow cultist gets even close to them.  If she notices that Mercy wants to slink off again, she'll do everything she can to gain the attention of the other cultist recruits.  She's impatiently waiting for the darkness of night to set in, where she'll feel more in her comfort zone.