I didn't realize I needed to turn in ring 1 to get ring 2 until AFTER I had turned in everything to Thalas for ring 3. Now Sergeant Halsey won't talk to me or let me turn in anything. Is there any way for me to continue on this quest now since I made a mistake?
Err, you shouldn't be able to do ring 3 without doing the first two rings, so there's an error there more than anything else. You're saying you were able to entirely skip ring 2 and get the quest from Captain Thalas to work on ring 3?
Yes, I got the ring III quest from Thalas; the box for cured meat, the box from the alchemist in Halas, and the box from a corrupted centaur. I turned these in to Thalas not realizing I hadn't done something first. When I went back to Halsey he wouldn't take the note from Thalas and now he won't talk to me at all when I hail him. I went back to Ebadlands and tried to redo the ring II quest and I got the heads but the key won't open the box. The NPC there recognizes me as "captain". I don't know what else to do. Thank you for trying to help me figure this out.