Upon replaying the game with a different party (I wanted to get a swordperson in there, since there are so many more boss swords than axes available,) I discovered that no, there was no key in that chest. Like a certain politician, I had "misremembered."Incidentally, I first came across the word "palimpsest" in a long-ago RPG whose name escapes me now. It was one of the first single-player (as opposed to party) RPG's out there. IIRC, SSI produced the game. I played it on my Commodore D-128. In the game, you couldn't access a mini-map (or any other kind) without finding a palimpsest.
Other than that particular chest, I consider it close to cheating not to guess the other riddles. JVC had a lot of riddles and other puzzles, too: mostly in the M&M's prior to VI. And he nearly always had clues available somewhere in the games. (MM4 was full of them.)
My current party consists of a barbarian orc, a crusader human, a runepriest dwarf, and a druid elf. I still think the 2-barbarian, runepriest, and elf party is superior.
