Siege of Vraks - Priory of the Argent Shroud: As the Angels of Absolution were fighting for the Basilica of St Leonis and the Red Scorpions were clearing the Cardinal’s Palace, Lord Hector Rex led his Storm Troopers and the Grey Knights into the Priory of the Argent Shroud. A squat, solid fortress in its own right, it had once been a base for the Sisters of Argent Shroud, and the inquisitor's mission was now to clear the priory and if possible find evidence of the missing Sisters. It was here that the Inquisitor Lord found Xaphan, the Apostate Cardinal, cowering - the man in whose name so many had fought and died. The man who had, by his misplaced ambition and twisted faith, set in motion the series of events that had led to a daemonic incursion on Vraks The man who had proclaimed himself the messiah of the apocalypse. He was a man no longer.The war as good as lost, Zhufor had departed but not before he'd had his final vengeance upon the Cardinal. Zhufor despised Xaphan as a weak mortal and so he had personally dragged the Cardinal from his wretched dungeon and left him to the Sorcerers of Nurgle. They in turn had visited a terrible end upon the Cardinal. Screaming in terror, Xaphan had been offered to their god and for Nurgle s pleasure he had become spawn - a giant mass of tentacles and claws, drooling and jabbering nonsense. Insane, the last of his reason and self- will torn away, the Cardinal was now an idiot-creature. Such was the fate of those that strayed too far from the Emperor’s light. The Grey Knights now unleashed that purifying light to purge the spawn from the galaxy forever Thrashing and wailing, the spawn that had once been Cardinal Xaphan was blasted apart by lighting cast from their nemesis force weaponsLord Rex and his men systematically cleared the rest of the priory of the last of its desperate defenders. Nothing here could stop Hector Rex, Arias bright in his fist as he killed, killed and killed again in the name of the Emperor. In the dungeons below, the Prior Justicar Ophia’s squad reported having found survivors. Lord Rex joined him to discover within the terrible and ruined remains of six prisoners. All had once been Sisters of the Argent Shroud, captured during Xaphan’s uprising. They had spent eighteen years in the dungeons, subjected to unspeakable tortures. Each was now half-starved and insane. Mute from the horrors inflicted upon them, their eyes were hollow and unseeing. Stupified, the Sisters no longer recognized friend or foe. In closely guarded secrecy the Grey Knights took the Sisters of Battle away, transporting them to their strike cruiser above. The prisoners might have been used in ceremonies of daemonic possession or as daemon-vessels themselves. They could not be allowed to return to their order - who knew what daemonic influence they might carry within them! The Ordo Malleus would hold them as prisoners of war and learn what they could from them. For the foreseeable future their detention must continue, only now it would be inside an Inquisitorial cell.After two days of combat the Priory, now reduced to a burnt-out shell, was cleansed. Inquisitorial Storm Troopers were ordered to garrison the remains whilst Inquisitor Rex turned his attention to the last of the Citadel’s surface buildings to remain unfought for - the inner keep.Once the inner keep had been the secure nerve centre of the Citadel Hem the astropath’s censorium tower reached towards the clouds and the Inquisition had maintained their own inner fortress, the Aedificium, from where Inquisitors and their strike forces could be equipped and where prisoners could be detained and interrogated It had also contained the holding cells for the sector's tithe of captured pskyers, destined for the Black ships that would ferry them to Terra. Those cells had been emptied by Xaphan and the rogue psykers had been set loose upon Vraks - just another of the Apostate Cardinal s criminal acts. Access to the inner keep had been highly restricted. It was separated from the mam Citadel by the plunging ravine which was spanned by a narrow, fortified bridge Artillery shells had now destroyed that bridge, so isolating the inner keep.It was also within the keep's walls that Hector Rex suspected that the heretics had attempted to open a warp portal. It was from here that the Daemons had been allowed to spill onto Vraks. Even if the Warp portal was now sealed, it must be destroyed lest it be re-opened at some unknown future date Inquisitor Rex also knew that the Warp portal had not only opened itself, but its monstrous power had also caused the weakening of reality to the point where Warp rifts had started to tear through from the ether wherever the fighting on Vraks was heaviest.Destroying the Warp portal would be dangerous, even tor the battle hardened Space Marines. It was a task for the Grey Knights alone. So Inquisitor Rex summoned Brother Captain Stern to his aid again. They were to plan and execute a teleport assault against the inner keep. Inquisitor Rex and a hand-picked force of his best Ordo Malleus Inquisitors would accompany them. The destruction of the suspected warp portal would be the penultimate act in the Vraksian war When it was gone, all that would be left would be the mopping up of the remaining Chaos worshippers.