Thanks guys. After going to the Bioware forums and finding others with the same trouble (and solution), I finally convinced Budha to back-track just one more time. He'd given up and created another char (whom he really wants to play anyhow). He backtracked and lo and behold, the squirrely little kobold came running up to him in bardic ecstasy.
Needless to say, Budha is quite the happy gamer right now---but I'm still ahead of him in the game

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