I have progressed to Nulb. Some notable things/quests I did at there are:

* Helped Mona get her orb back.
* Freed Serena from Mona.
* Bought a house.
* Had Mona check my future.

I didn't take the fish catching quest and also didn't want to fight the captain.

Now I'm stuck at there and don't know what to do. But somehow the Temple of Elemental Evil is on my world map, and I'm not sure why. I think it's weird to go to the temple without progressing the story first, so I don't want to go there now.

By checking some walkthroughs, I learned that a NPC in the hostel picks pocket from you and you need a high Spot skill to trigger some dialog/quests. I'm soloing the game as a wizard and do not have high Spot skill. Is it necessary to trigger the dialog/quests to progress the story? I guess not, because not everyone has high Spot skill. Or am I wrong?

== Update ==
After reading a walkthrough and checking a savegame of mine, I realized that it was Otis the Smith who marked the temple on my world map. I guess I can only go to the temple now if I want to progress because Nulb doesn't seem to have any more progress-related quests for me to do. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

so what's your problem after all? (and what's "public area" anyway)

My problem was not being able to find progress-related quests in Nulb. This has been solved.

"Public area" means areas such as Hommlet and Nulb. I did not say "Nulb" directly in the title because some forum members might consider that as a spoiler.