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I've been re-reading the Phoenix Rising sourcebook (I haven't read the novel), and there's something that's really bugging me. Yvraine was once looking for the croneswords of Morag-Hei to fight back against Slaanesh and managed to find four out of five. Then, she received a vision from Shalaxi Helbane showing her that the fifth sword was in Slaanesh's realm, and therefore forever out of reach of the Eldar. She abandoned this particular quest as a result.

But why would Yvraine believe that the vision is true? It's a vision that comes from the Great Enemy, who is second only to Tzeentch in terms of untrustworthiness.

In fact, if She Who Thirsts were in possession of the fifth cronesword, it would be in her advantage to hide that fact from Yvraine, so that Yvraine would keep wasting time searching for it instead of looking for another solution. It might be that Slaanesh was scared of Yvraine's course of action, and steered her towards one that was deemed less likely to succeed.

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The Gods like to taunt those who oppose them and that's likely why Slaanesh ordered the location of the sword to be revealed.

Right. One still has to wonder how that conversation went down between Yvraine and her followers.

Yvraine: "Well, gentlemen, I'm afraid our quest cannot go further. She Who Thirsts has the fifth cronesword."
Followers: "Hold up. How do you know that?"
Yvraine: "She, uh... gave me a vision of the sword in her realm."
Followers: "And you're gonna just... take the Great Enemy's word for it?!"
Yvraine: "...You don't get it, guys. It was like, super vivid. Like I was there."
Followers: "..............okay"

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The one that sent the vision was Shalaxi, not Slaanesh personally.

Shalaxi seems to have the classic sin of Pride so cannot resist flaunting. For much the same reason, I see Shalaxi as doing the classic "I meant to do that" and "I was not really trying" when defeated by the Eldar. Having only been recently released by Slaanesh for a previous failure, I think Shalaxi would do everything possible to avoid appearing to fail again, so would never admit defeat.

From a larger narrative standpoint, the fifth cronesword constricted story possibilities around Yvraine and the Ynnari if their only goal was to find the 5th sword to trigger their endgame. Then like a Saturday morning cartoon, they always have to fail to acquire the McGuffin, because if they ever succeeded the setting would be upended.

Iracundus wrote:

From a larger narrative standpoint, the fifth cronesword constricted story possibilities around Yvraine and the Ynnari if their only goal was to find the 5th sword to trigger their endgame. Then like a Saturday morning cartoon, they always have to fail to acquire the McGuffin, because if they ever succeeded the setting would be upended.

Exactly. The setting can't afford to change too much in general. The tyranids will always be on the verge of eating the whole galaxy because if they actually did it, everything would be over. The Emperor will never truly die because so much of the setting depends on the Imperum existing. The Eldar will remain on the brink of extinction forever because they can't actually go extinct without being removed from the game and they can't defeat Slaanesh without removing another faction... So yeah, the alternative would have been to see Yvraine try and fail endlessly to get the sword. At least that way the Ynnari can succed at doing stuff and keep the status quo nice and safe.

This is why I tend to prefer stories with smaller stakes. BL writers are free to do kill as many characters or blow up as many planets as they want, when none of them are vital to the setting. Unlike when the main character has a model in-game; you know he'll never be in any true danger then.

Slaneesh is the lord of pleasure and temptations. It wouldn’t be good creatively for such a character to just hide away, infact I think it would be impossible for slaneesh to not reveal the swords location as slaneesh is mad of feelings such as arrogance.

It makes perfect sense that slaneesh would flaunt the possession of the sword and that it was in such a safe location trying to tempt its opponents into trying to acquire the sword and then falling prey to a well placed trap. Or just knowing that they know where the sword is but can’t get it. That must be a real kick for slaneesh. And for slaneesh to benefit from any of that then the vision would have to be true.

As a sceptic IRL I am very critical to visions and preconditions etc. The main difference in Dune, Warhammer etc is that they come true (sometimes.)

One of the benefits of science is that it can produce predictability. Visions in warhammer seem to be at least better then chance. I am stil very confused about it myself. But it is what it is. How can they trust a vision from a slanesh demon I do not have enough information to say. How they trust the vision of getting all five crone swords also sounds like bogus.