Day 7:
Today I fixed the bug of skipping text panels. Basically what happened is that I was having the Update function in two separate scripts checking for user input of the Space button: one script checked Space to start the dialogue pop-up, and another script checked Space to move to the next text panel. Integrating all of this into one script that keeps track of the state - of whether a dialogue already exists (move to next panel) or does not exist (start a dialogue) - solved this issue.
Now I have the overworld interactable! At least in a basic sense - the main character responds to many of the objects around the tavern. She can't interact with them any further at this point, but anything read-only is available!
The next big task in the combat system! I'm hoping by the end of this weekend I can have a basic functioning one going since this will be the meat of the encounters.