I started out with her too as a cohort, not knowing she was a ranger at the time. It was after dropping her, that I wanted to hire the other guy. Not being able to find the missing crew (or rather, the missing key) however, I'm not sure if it is possible to progress the game any further
I wonder if I can cheat code in a key...
I gave up and started a new game, importing my characters from the above game. Not sure what happened to my first game, but now I can what was supposed to happen. Not only did the little reptile go awal, so did Na'Sani and Volo who were supposed to be in that corral at the bazar, giving me new tasks. Yeah, they had disappeared too. This time, I got a few tasks from Volo too. Ah well, hopefully, I can "clear out" the map reasonably fast since I get to keep my xp and my equipment. That is, I dissed my lead character and created a new ranger/wizard/arcane archer, but otherwise intact party.