It was late in the morning when Tarion and the strange girl from last night came calling on Illiana.  When she greeted them, her mentor seemed to inspect her condition and, while she was definitely cleaner, Illiana could tell that he still found reason for concern.  Nevertheless, he tried to bring her cheer rather than more sullenness and did so with trays of fresh food -- the finest breakfast the village could afford for their heroine.  The strange girl also held some of it, though she clearly had less grace than the old bear with a bum leg.<br/><br/>Tarion insisted that Illiana relax for the day and promised that he'd take care of the daily watch.  In the meantime, he made sure she enjoyed her breakfast, reporting the various humdrum non-events and gossip about the village while she ate.  Once she appeared to have her fill, Tarion allowed the strange girl to make her introduction.<br/><br/>"M-my name is Zira Kuan," she said with a small accent, bowing lowly once again and almost hitting her forehead on the edge of the table as she did so.  "I come from the village of Gursat, west of here.  I'm an explorer now but my trade is... I believe you use the word techno-savant -- that is, I make my living by discovering, repairing and reactivating lost machinery as well as designing methods for replication and, whenever possible, mass-production of necessary technology.<br/><br/>"I am not certain what gods you worship here, but in my home we have always prayed to Alora, who blesses us with fertile crop fields and strong children.  My people have worshiped Alora as long as anyone can remember, but it was not until recently that I discovered why."  Despite herself, Zira leaned forward almost conspiratorially and grinned as she spoke.  "You see, while exploring the caverns near my village, I discovered something far more interesting than broken sound equipment or automatic tree cutters.  I believe I found Alora...<br/><br/>"Or, at least, I believe I found whatever was keeping our fields fertile and our people healthy.  There was a creature deep within the caverns, you see -- one that was unlike anything I'd ever seen before.  It was large and oddly-shaped and the only way I could tell that it was an animal and not simply a plant was the fact that it breathed and I could feel its pulse.  It did not appear to have sensory organs of any sort nor a means for communicating, eating or even moving around.  It seemed to simply exist in the earth, inhaling the sulfurous vapors of the volcanic springs and then exhaling some sort of vapor that saturated the earth all around it.  I left it there and returned home to think on it and I determined that its vapor must be what is responsible for keeping our village's land rich while the rest of the area around us is virtually uninhabitable.<br/><br/>"I returned later to study the organism further as well as its habitat.  Not long into my research, I stumbled upon something very interesting."  She then reached into her clothes as if to retrieve something but, after a bit of floundering about, she came up empty handed and flustered.  "... oh, no.  I don't have it, I... I must have dropped it when I was running from that thing!  Oh, dear... oh, dear, oh, dear... "