Well, I'm a newbie to NWN, and I just today bought a NVIDIA GeForce 2 video card and installed NWN successfully. I have completed all of the training exercises, and now the woman paladin (forgot the name) wants me to guard the animals in the cells. I killed most of the goblins. I am currently standing idly in front of the cells and the umber hulk is wiggling his arse and looking at me suspiciously. What do I do? I went back to the woman, and she just says the same thing, "guard the creatures!". This is very peculiar.

You're in the wrong set of cells. Go to the big double doors just north of the entrance to the lady paladin's area, and go through there, you'll run into some goblins and skeletons and one mage along the way to the Waterdhavian creatures you're supposed to be defending.

its buy the rooms where you train to be a thief, mage, priest etc. there is a large set of double doors. go through there, and you will see what to do.

hehe... I did the same exact thing. Took me a while to figure out where i was supposed to go. Once you go through the big double doors, you'll also meet someone who will level you up, and you'll start cruisin at that point.

Whoa, this rocks! I have been playing for 2 hours and am at level 3 already! Took me at least 4 days to do that is BG1...

You are automatically level 3 when you leave the academy, as long as you talk to the "level up" trainer in there. He levels you automatically, and so does Fenthick. Thus, don't pat yourself too much on the back, it only gets harder from there... :D