desperate...need help in Asylum dungeon

okay....here's the deal:
i'm in the asylum dungeon under spellhold and i have to get the "hand of the builder" to open the door (get past the statue) to the next level.
i killed the "builder" and he retreated to his coffin/tomb thing. so i click on that and it says:
blah blah blah....if you had a wooden stake you could kill this vampire....
but i don't have any wooden stakes, and i can't find any in the dungeon, and i cant get out of the dungeon!! i'm stuck!! please help if you have any ideas!
(i've also foolishly only got ONE save game...the one i'm stuck in)

There's a tribe of kobolds worshipping a red gemstone a ways to the north of the vampire's little grotto. You'll find a stake on one of their corpses.
Also, located here is the only xvart in the game! And it still says it's a kobold. : P

hmmmmmm......i looked on all their corpses, and to no avail!!
what the hell am i gonna do !?!!?!
*wipes tears from eyes*

Look again. Try finding objects concealed by walls. One of the kobolds has a stake, I'm 100% sure.

I am 101% sure of that too, as I ran around for 2 real life hours looking for the damned stake, and asking here (but noone said this about the cobolds then). I had looked around 4 times very close everywhere when I went to the cobolds room AGAIN. On one of their corpses (it is the corpse of a shaman, priest, or magician, a staff lies in the same pile) there is a stake, I had missed that particular corpse for Ilmater knows what reason.

/Morninglord of Sweden