I recently picked this back up for the first time in a while, but right now Liam (the "hero") is just staying in the tavern, never going out to prompt Celica to find the desert, and no events happen at the tavern despite the exclamation mark on it every time I look on it (and it is bright and fully present, not faded in the slightest) so I'm pretty sure that's supposed to indicate a guaranteed event at the location it's on?).
I'm going to start a new save to see if following events in a different order will help fix it at all, but would also really appreciate any clarifications as to the actual specific requirements for that event to go off in case it doesn't (or better yet, to pick my current save back up and try at it again with an explicit checklist to go through and see if it works)?