This wasn't the plan!
Ranni was in midair, her mind a tangled mess, like a ball of yarn full of knots she couldn't undo.
The original plan was to drug Maliketh, then send the Black Knife Assassins to steal Destined Death.
Ranni was only there as insurance. If the Black Knife Assassins failed, she would act.
Even the poison had been prepared in duplicate.
When they were little and the siblings teamed up to play pranks, Rykard had taught her, "When you're doing something bad, it's best to have several backups. Just like our traps for pranking people-we always have three. Haha!"
Ranni didn't like pranks, but she had taken Rykard's words to heart.
So of course she had backup poison to deal with unexpected situations.
Sure enough, they had encountered a test from Miquella.
They had already anticipated that Miquella would be watching them, so naturally, they hadn't rushed to administer the drug.
Yet they had failed!
They had still failed!
Miquella had forced them to seize it by force.
They had considered that the Godslayer's Greatsword might become a land mine. But they hadn't expected Miquella to actually enrage Marika.
Ranni simply couldn't understand how Miquella's mind worked. What good did this do him?
Of course it did him good.
The greatest benefit was throwing Ranni and the others' plan into chaos, turning theft into outright robbery.
Their conspiracy had been fully exposed, and Miquella now controlled the timing of its eruption.
In other words, Miquella's side had become the best prepared.
And Ranni's side had ended up in the worst possible situation-they had enraged Maliketh.
In the original game, it wasn't entirely clear why Maliketh hadn't joined the Shattering after losing part of Destined Death.
Perhaps losing Destined Death had kept him busy dealing with Those Who