I did manage to get the book out of the ruins even with the skeletons opening the door to the zombie chamber for the terror. I guess I made it to a high enough level to take a couple of hits from her. Had to sacrifice plundering the chest on the ledge on the way out though.

I was able to Town Portal into Sturmford and so far still get the dialogue box to leave, so I can continue to play for awhile with this game. I'm going to avoid quicksave from now on in case that is the problem (it fits as I've never used it until now and had no problem like this until now). The only other cause I can think of is that I don't have my notes for MM9 printed out (my printer is very old, makes horrible clanking noises it never used to make, and goes through 3 sheets of paper trying to print 1), so I periodically minimized the game in order to consult the notes on my computer. Would this affect the game in any way?