I'm still curious to know if Morte not being captured
would have shut out advancement in the game.
I had that happen once in a game I love called Divine Divinty.
Divine Divinity is a fine, beautiful game - although the first dungeon is the worst (and could give the player the impression that it's really just a Diablo'esk Action-RPG). When it was released, D.D. was horribly bugged, I played it with the last official patch (which deactivated the beautiful dusk/dawn lightning). I got no plot stopper bug, but one quest in the beginning doesn't work right. And you shouldn't use the teleport stones or teleporters across different areas - it kills your map. What was you plot stopper bug?