[Mage: The Slenderman Plot] Zero-X (Part V) The Monster

Out of Character (OOC):

Chronicle: Mage 2: The Dethroned Queen
Venue: Mage: The Awakening (1st Edition at the time)
Chronicle Storyteller: Jerad Sayler

Assistant Storytellers: Hannah Nyland & Alex Van Belkum

Zero-X: The Monster (Part V)

So here we are, the creature, the Slenderman himself.  All the things I put together to bring this version of the creature to life.  Inspired by both The Thief from the nWoD Antagonist sourcebook and the online urban legend phenomena of the Slenderman.  I've ran this plot first as a city-wide, venue-wide game for Mind's Eye Theater / Mind's Eye Society / Camarilla fan club plot in 2011 and then again in 2014 for our current Mage: The Awakening chronicle - Mage 2: The Dethroned Queen.

Story Parts:
1. Part I
2. Part II
3. Part III
4. Part IV
5. Part V: The Monster

The Slenderman

Aliases:

Slendy, The Thief, The Operator, The Administrator, Der Großmann, Mr. Slim, Keeper, and Stick-In-The-Mud, Daddy-long-legs, The White King, The Pale Knight and of course, Slendy!

Research:

These are things that can be found out about the creature with proper research. Storytellers are heavily encouraged to consider the source is what is discovered and how to tailor the results. Some of this information is misleading rumors which build dread and uncertainty; some have nuggets of truth that will help characters learn more about this threat. The information is purposefully left vague so STs can put their own spin on it based on what has occurred and the true info provided in this kit. There are also suggested dice pools and progression of successes.

Urban Legends

Sources: Blogs, paranormal sites, Tabloids

Dice Rolls: Intelligence + Streetwise or Computer

1. Also known as the "The Slender Man" or "Slendy", Mr. Thin, the Tall Man, the Operator

2. Completely fictional character – some blogger just made him up…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slender_Man

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/slender-man-stabbing

http://techcrunch.com/2014/06/30/the-story-of-slenderman-the-internets-own-monster/

http://theslenderman.wikia.com/wiki/Abilities_of_the_Slender_Man

http://theslenderman.wikia.com/wiki/Slender_Man

http://theslenderman.wikia.com/wiki/Slender_Man_in_Mythology_and_Culture

http://theslenderman.wikia.com/wiki/Original_Mythos

http://creepypasta.wikia.com/wiki/The_Slender_Man

http://theslenderman.wikia.com/wiki/The_Sickness

http://theslenderman.wikia.com/wiki/The_Obsession

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/slender-man

3. Common Threads

• Very old, immortal of sorts
• Black suit and white shirt
• Tentacles hidden on back
• Presence associate with paranoia and strange sickness
• Those who see him are frequently found to be maniacally writing strange messages, and drawing mad scribbles of a dark, faceless figure
• Can stretch limbs and torso to impossible lengths
• Stalks and kidnaps children, kills college students and adults to stalked when they were children
• Size varies from 7 feet to a tall tree or house
• Able to stretch and shapeshift limbs
• Faceless skeletal head with no sensory organs
• Abducts people, removes organs, impales victims on trees or organs and body parts in plastic bags hanging from trees
• Can look like its victims
• Looks like one of the "Men in Black"
• Doesn't speak, can it talk?
• Absorbs victims
• Takes people to an undisclosed location or another dimension
• Dreams, nightmares, and paranoia leading up to abduction
• Parents don't believe kids and their overactive imaginations, then the kids disappear
• Only kids can see him
• It is advised to avoid investigating too much lest you get entrenched too deep...and find yourself the subject of unwanted interest.

Native Legends

Sources: Books, Internet, Interviews

Dice Rolls: Intelligence + Academics

1. Ute, Navajo, Anasasi, Hopi and other western American Indians have legends about “skin-walkers” (See link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skin-walker)

2. A witch/shaman who can shapeshift using the pelts of animals, rumored to have helped Native Americans escape white conquerors

3. Pure Evil, use a “Witchery Way” ritual of a perverted song “Black Mass” to get power

4. Most Native Americans are reluctant to speak of them out of fear

5. Can steal skin from humans with eye contact, prefer the dark and eyes glow, can imitate human/animal sounds and read mind

6. Stalk chosen people/prey, cause accidents, fast, agile, impossible to catch even when wounded and maimed.

7. Supposedly speaking the skin-walkers full name makes it sick three days later

8. Use charms like human bone beads, snakes, hair in pottery shards

9. Killed by bullets tip in white ash, many find their guns jammed in presence of the creature

10. Local Ute legend about a slumbering creature in a cave, wakes periodically and feasts on chosen prey

11. Once it is full it hides as a man and sleeps again

12. Plagued Native Americans, hunters that were one with the spirit of nature and the wolf went to destroy it and never returned, but it didn't return either  

13. Tried to warn the whites when they arrived but it is just a legend

Western Occult Research

Sources: Libraries and Online Academic Research

Dice Rolls: Intelligence + Academics

1. Based on description - Unknown kind of fairy folk with roots in German folklore

2. 16th century woodcuts of the Dance of Death depict a similar entity dating back to medieval times

3. Ancient Boogieman - "Der Ritter" and "Der Großmann"

4. Snatches children (works for a keeper?)

5. Prefers trees and fog to cover its movements

6. Johanne Goethe poem and Schubert song "Der Erlkonig" (translated- "Night King" or "Boogeyman)

7. Prefers forest, similar wording and ties to the hunt and the Erl Konig of “Earl King”

History:

What did this used to be? A Native American horror like Spearfinger, the Stone Man, Skinwalkers, and Wendigo. This spirit or spirit/flesh being (like a werewolf but a Skinwalker) corrupted by being bound since ancient times above the slumbering Bakken Acamoth know as The Darkness that Thirsts

Aspects of a spirit, flesh, and Abyssal Morphean made whole.  Werewolves hundreds of years ago the packs of the United Tribes sealed him in Eagle Butte. Has that bit of shape-shifting with the tentacles slash spider legs. 

Anyone who sees it comes mentally linked by dream sympathy. People obsessing over the Slenderman seem to cause Slenderman to gain power through attention, thought form, fears, nightmares, all filtering into the Tenemos and its forested nightmare realm.  (Wait, did this used to be a Beast?). Children vanish or become proxied, bodies never found. Obsessive people tend to also vanish. He is the Der GroBmann - The tall man, Germany Fairy in Black Forest, grabs children...

Storytelling Notes

 1. As the oil has spread throughout the country the dreams and urban legends of the Slenderman have grown.

2. Once released causes nightmares, drawing images or recent kills, people, especially children show this. They can be very useful, worst turned into proxies 

3. It freaks people out that it doesn't attack, can't comprehend what it wants. its poking around looking for supernaturals - eyewitness accounts., linked to people who see it or dream about it.

4. Long fingers or tendrils can slice through flesh and snatch an organ from a living body with horrible suction (granny death), very very precise dissection, no raggad holes... much like the SpearFinger.

5. The reason it has no face is because you cannot remember it the second you look away as a defensive measure to your own sanity... you have enough problems with the Integrity hits.

6. Is this aTulpa? Well kind of. - what came first? The chicken or the egg?

7. Integrity Check the first time you see it in a scene (after that each scene is accumulative +1 or -1 to future looks.Combat tilts - Nasea, incapacitation, etc.... Fear Tilts

8. We have been dreaming subconsciously about it, it leaks maddness and dream-stuff from it, hence urban legend.

9. Psychic energy everywhere, leaking out of astral holes, can't pin down location easily but its a start, Fate also helps. dream/abyssal resonance.

10. Victims clothing cut open carefully and organs precisely sucked out, creating very cylindrical holes.

11. Leaves a big psychic resonance footprint but very little physical evidence.

 

Description:

• 9 feet plus - spindly and spider-like, sometimes there seems to be more than four limbs… can also have long fingers with bladed ends. 10 tendrils from back. 
• Bald - wears hood, black long limbs and fingers 
• Gray skin (color and texture of wet concrete), black hands and feet
• No eyes.
• Dark Suit, Black Tie, White shirt.... looks fleshy though, part of the dream/flesh?
• Thin edgeless mouth with razor teeth - can't see it until it is eating you, otherwise no facial features.
• Indistinct skeletal facial features,
• Tentacles and spidery branch/limbs come out of its back when it is angry.
• Makes a rattling noise like a geiger counter, mumbles, clattering of dried sticks, low muttering sounds

Tracking the creature:

1. It creates a wide imprint of psychic energy, strange lack of resonance (Supernally grounded out) 

2. Leaves no evidence of being a living thing (because its not)

3. Adults get Dreamsickness, reality breaks down a little around them 

4. Electronic Disruptions are tells

5. Animals & children act strangely...

6. Use of Sympathy combined with Mind magic - "dream sympathy" it has with its living victims, proxies, and the Operator and can be used to track it.

7. The connections to its victims also means it dreams them their own evolving mythos of the thing. So it tells the whole internet enough about it to set a good trap! symbol. 

8. It's Slenderwalk teleports it (when unseen) through the Tenemos but it doesn't reside there, it just instantly bursts through

Stats: (nWoD 1.0)

Virtue: Prudence

Vice: Gluttony

Stat values are as follows:  simplified stat / value starting dots / endgame dots

Attributes:  (+1 for each organ devoured throughout the plot, Simple / Start / Finish)

Power: 8; Intelligence: 8/4/8, Strength: 8/6/10, Presence: 8/2/6

Finesse: 8; Wits: 8/5/9, Dexterity: 8/5/9, Manipulation: 8/3/7

Resistance: 9; Resolve: 9/4/8, Stamina: 9/6/10, Composure: 9/4/8

Skills: (unless your using the P/F/R but you can add a single trait and the skill as a pool instead)

Occult: 5

Investigation: 2

Medicine: 4                     

Athletics: (Jumping) (Climbing) 5             

Brawl: (Grappling) (Biting) (Clawing) 5

Firearms: 1

Larceny: (Locks) (Windows) 4

Stealth: (Sneaking) (Blending in) (Hiding) 5 

Survival: (Escape) 5

Weaponry: (Tendril Blades) 5

Intimidation: 6

Streetwise: 3 

Subterfuge: 5

Merits: 

Occultation OOOOO O

Fast Reflexes OO

Fleet of Foot OOO

Unseen Sense (all) OOO – For tracking

Combat Awareness OO (+2 on situational awareness rolls)

Danger Sense OO (+2 to perception on surprise round)

Eidetic Memory OO 

Encyclopedia Knowledge OOOO

Emotional Detachment O

Equipped Grappling OO (+2 to overpowers)

Giant OOOO

Iron Stomach OO

Iron Stamina OOO

Parkour OOOOO

Strong Back O

Quick Healer OOOO (double recovery speed) \

Fighting Style: Grappling OOOOO

Advantages:

Health: 19

Willpower: 10 

Speed: 20 

Defense: 9 

Initiative: 19

Perception: 19+2 

Size: 9 

Weapons:

- Claws  

- Tendril Stabs

- Tendril Grappling

- Needle Teeth

- Liston Knife

Supernatural Abilities

O Absorption: (Thief)

It eats the organs of supernatural beings (Major and Minor templates).  The number of organs that will grant power are based on Stamina: 1 organ at 2 stam, 2 at 3, and so on - gives +1 to an attribute per organ.

O Obfuscation Analog: (Original)

Roll 16 = cloaked vs perception or  mage sight, can be seen on electronic means but blurs and distorts tech. Chooses who and when it is seen. Animals can always see it, that is why they are usually killed, mutilated and placed in plastic bags.. Children always see it but are susceptible to mind-woggity. 

O Shifter Camouflage: (Slenderman)

It is a very alien thing, but the suit at a distance is meant to show status or gain trust. Its faceless face part of the ability doesn't seem to work.  This mechanism in its appearance is how it has updated its form over the years.

O Shapeshifting Limbs: (Slenderman)

Sprouts tentacles, spider legs, up to 10 total from back/shoulders 

O Complete Immunity: (Thief)

Immune to all supernatural powers that target it. It seems to ground out Supernal Magic. It is the ultimate fallen entity. The Resonance it leaves behind doesn't go deeper into the Supernal World... its like it isn't there at all.

O Slenderwalk: (Slenderman)

When not being observed it can teleport through the Tenemos somehow, its reflexive but can only do it once per turn as its movement action. It comes out where it can find madness and its taint on a person, if they have seen it or dreamed of it. Doesn't hurt Sleepers, only special folks. 

O No face: (Slenderman)

Occultation to a whole new level, can't remember it. Even if you could you would take an

Integrity check and then forget again (like the Sleeping Curse). Meditation and high willpower help; failing the roll puts up under the influence of the Slenderman. Cumulative -1, +1 to future glimpses at face, causes combat tilts.

O Dreamsickness: (Slenderman)

Nosebleeds, vomiting, paralysis, paranoia, obsession - gain Combat Tilt temporarily, 16 vs Composure + Gnosis to resist: Mental fortification helps 

O Dreamflesh: (Original)

Downgrades all conventional damage (Immune to Bashing, Lethal becomes Bashing).  One Bashing heals in a round, a Lethal damage heals in 7 minutes and an Aggravated damage is healed in half a day.

O Proxies: (Slenderman)

Children who's mental facilities have been broken down through obsessions become influenced servants and go-betweens to what Slendy doesn't. He doesn't abduct them, they run away 

O Psychic Backlash: (Slenderman)

Roll 16 - Resolve = bashing damage, manifests like Paradox Backlash physically, hits all in an area.  Uses presence as a weapon like Psychic Blast.

O Numen: Compulsion: (Slenderman)

 Roll 16, functions as Compulsion Numen. 

[Mage 2: The Dethroned Queen] Patient 4: The Vacant Stare

Out of Character (OOC):

Venue: Mage: The Awakening 2nd Edition

Chronicle: Mage 2: The Dethroned Queen

Story: The Asylum

Chapter 3 – Scene 6 "The Vacant Stare"

Storyteller: Jerad Sayler

North Dakota State Hospital 

Patient Case Study #5 The Vacant Stare

The following is an excerpt is from an active play-by-post Story Plot starring Chimera (Hannah Nyland), Jack Bismuth (Alex Van Belkum), & Eos (Jerad Sayler). The Story is called The Asylum and involves the supernatural badness of the Jamestown State Hospital in Jamestown, North Dakota. Now that the Malus Loci is closed and several months has gone by, Chimera shifts her attention to some of the peripheral oddities at the NDSH. She sends her familiar Azazel to interface with STARK, a highly advanced magically created Virtual Intelligence, to plum the depths of the hospital records looking for anything odd.

Azazel: Boss, while were you were chasing Seers I've noted a few unusual cases we might want to look into.  The next one on the priority list reeks of the supernatural and I recommend we look into this next.

Patient: Jesus Emilio Alvarado
Attending Physician: Dr. Preston Cates

Case Number: BG-0414
Date Entered: 23 Oct 2012

Description & History

Fifteen years ago, Jesus Emilio Alvarado was once a small business owner in Brownsville, Texas. He had a wife, Esperanza, two children, Antonio and Amelia and a prosperous hardware business consisting of two stores, and he was about to open a third. However, in that same year Jesus went missing and wasn’t to be seen again until 10 years ago. During those five years, the man who was Jesus Emilio Alvarado was subjected to unimaginable terrors, leaving a severely disturbed and damaged person in his place. One of the primary causes for confusion with this case is our inability
to account for Jesus during the five-year span. Though the details are  a bit spotty, the previously mentioned memory regression therapy has met with some success and this story, according to Alvarado, is what happened.

Jesus Emilio Alvarado left his family to travel across the border to arrange a new wholesaler for his business in Tampico, Mexico. After displaying his passport to border patrol at Matamoros, Alvarado stopped at a slightly out-of-the-way café for refreshment before continuing south. It was at this café that Alvarado encountered his abuser-to-be, a woman Jesus knows only by the name “La Santisima Muerte” — the name of a patron saint revered by the cultic practitioners of Brujeria, or Mexican shamanic witchcraft. After serving him a cup of coffee, the woman returned with three large men who subdued Jesus when he attempted to go to his car. It was at this point, that Alvarado’s story turns into a nightmare.

After being transported, blindfolded, in the flatbed of an old truck, the woman from the café and her three assistants unloaded Alvarado into a decrepit ranch-style house. Inside, Jesus was stripped, shaved, handcuffed and then locked in a closet without food or water for several days. 

Once this period of isolation was over, Alvarado, believed to be mostly delirious at this point, witnessed the ritual murder of a teenage boy — a fate that Alvarado assumed would be his own. The killing involved skinning the boy alive at the foot of a crude altar atop of which sat a cauldron filled with all manner of bones and odd protrusions of wood. During the moment of the boy’s final bloodcurdling scream, the woman called “La Santisima Muerte” cut off his head with a machete and offered it to the cauldron, requesting protection and power. Over the next several months, Alvarado witnessed six more of these murders, which varied in their torture methods but always ended with a prayer and offering to the cauldron. 

After what Alvarado experienced as years, he was taken to the altar and restrained there. While being beaten with palm fronds as some kind of symbolic act, he claims he was invaded by a tortured spirit — most likely Alvarado’s rationale for a schizophrenic breakdown brought on by the sustained terror and anxiety of his experience. He claims that when the so called spirit filled him, the man named Jesus Emilio Alvarado ceased to be “as if held underwater by a dark hand, unable to speak, or breath. Only fear. Only fear.” Alvarado claims that this ritual was conducted every night for a span of time he has no concept of.

Ten years ago, the farmhouse was located and raided by Mexican Police and American Border Patrol as part of an initiative to locate safehouses for those seeking to immigrate illegally and locations of staged human trafficking into the country. It was only by lucky coincidence that the Matamoros farmhouse was uncovered. In addition to the remains of more than 22 ritual sacrifices, authorities rescued Jesus Alvarado, whom they found wandering in circles in a nearby field when the raid occurred. After two days of researching Alvarado’s identity, authorities notified his family of his rescue, and, after a silent, frightened reunion with a family he could no longer recognize, Jesus was taken to Centro Estatal de Salud Mental, a Mental Hospital in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico.

Within a few months, however, the Centro Estatal de Salud Mental — which was already suffering significant overcrowding — received a request from researchers at the North Dakota State Hospital to transfer Mr. Alvarado to NDSH. Because the researchers (who's names I have been unable to find) were studying the ritual child abuse and the Satanic Panic phenomenon, they wished to make comparisons between his experiences and those of individuals who claimed to have been ritually abused by cults. The necessary bureaucratic arrangements were made, and Alvarado was transferred to Jamesown, where he has remained since.

Memory regression therapy has been proven to be unreliable, as the mind is just as likely to create memories as it is to remember severely repressed memories, making it impossible to know if he is telling the truth about the severity of his treatment in captivity.  Out of curiosity, I looked for any results generated by Jesus's first doctors and their study into memory and Satanic Cults but was unable to find anything in the hospital archives. 

Clearly the stories about his possession are either the result of repeated memory regression therapy sessions overwriting any true memories with fanciful ones or the trauma of his experience causing formed the stories of demonic possession as a defense mechanism.  Possession is sometime used as an excuse to rationalize personal behavior when someone does horrible things or was forced to participate in deviant behavior the person harbors deep shame and guilt over.

Treatments and Results

Jesus Emilio Alvarado is a sporadic catatonic, occasionally breaking from his malaise to become barely functional. His language skills are generally nonexistent, and his awareness of his surroundings is likewise severely limited.  We aren't even sure how well his English is because the results of the trauma make it impossible to get a clear assessment on his cognitive capabilities. 

Most Recent Photo

Only under the effects of deep hypnosis is the man who was once Alvarado able to communicate with those outside of his mental prison. During these times, his eyes widen as if distracted by something in the room that is gradually growing in prominence, and his face gradually but steadily transforms into a mask of horror. At the climax of this transformation, Jesus will let out a very disconcerting and shrill scream and continues until his throat is so stripped he can make no more sound. During the scream, however, his  hands slash at his own chest, ripping at the skin, as if trying to release something that he feels is trapped inside his own body (Jesus has experienced severe injury and infection due to this seizure-like behavior and self-injury). Nonetheless, outside of hypnosis, he shows no anxiety related to what appears to be a post-traumatic condition and is generally quite docile.

Care Plan
Alvarado is perhaps one of the most tragic cases of our current patients, having had his mental disorders inflicted on him through traumatic, systematic torture both psychological and physical rather than naturally occurring deterioration due to a pre-existing condition. Mercifully, he has little-to no recollection of what he’s lost. Nonetheless, his recovery seems unlikely.

However, there are certainly things we can learn from Alvarado insofar as dissociative disorders. Though his case and recovery over the last decade may seem bleak, we’re sure that further testing and experimentation with Jesus’s hypnosis therapy could result in progress with less severe cases.  

It should be noted that after three years of institutionalization, his wife filed for divorce and remarried. He is occasionally visited by his now adult children, however its been three years since their last visit.

Azazel: Cults of Saint Death (Santa Muerte) are very common nowadays, especially in Mexico and along the US Mexican Border. We've seen evidence of mages associated with the cults in San Antonio and also in San Diego.

Nuestra Señora de la Santa Muerte (Spanish for Our Lady of the Holy Death) or, colloquially, Santa Muerte (Holy Death), is a female deity (or folk saint depending on school of thought) in Mexican folk religion, particularly Folk Catholicism, venerated primarily in Mexico and the Southwestern United States. A personification of death, she is associated with healing, protection, and safe delivery to the afterlife by her devotees. Despite condemnation by the Catholic Church, her cult has become prominent in the 2000s and 2010s, as a continuation of the Aztec goddess of death Mictecacihuatl or Mictlancihuatl (Nahuatl for "Lady of the Dead") clad according to Spanish iconography.

Since the pre-Columbian era Mexican culture has maintained a certain reverence towards death, which can be seen in the widespread commemoration of the Day of the Dead. Santa Muerte generally appears as a skeletal female figure, clad in a long robe and holding one or more objects, usually a scythe and a globe. 

In the Mexican and U.S. press, the Santa Muerte cult is often associated with violence, criminality, and the illegal drug trade. She is a popular deity in prisons, both among inmates and staff, and shrines dedicated to her can be found in many cells.  Altars with images of Santa Muerte have been found in many drug houses in both Mexico and the United States.

In San Diego there is a small Nameless Order called The Ahijados de la Santism Muerte (Children of the Holy Death) a claim to have always been and they simply arrived in San Diego when an influx of Mexicans during the 1920s arrived in San Diego. They are a very peculiar order, deeply connected to their own culture and unwilling to maintain any kind of separation between their lives as mages and their human communities.

Members of the Order are bound together by the benevolence of Santisma Muerte. Many street vendors, taxi drivers, vendors of pirated merchandise, street people, prostitutes, pickpockets, petty drug traffickers and gang members. They also protect gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered Mexicans, as they are outcasts.

The Ahijados are a large body, it’s assumed, considering the relatively few Mexican Awakened who join the Pentacle. The majority of Ahijados avoid the Pentacle preferring to tend to their local families and communities. Those who run up against the Pentacle tend to be those with strong criminal inclinations, those who are attempting to accrue temporal power or use magic openly. For every criminal Ahijado that the Pentacle interacts with there are a dozen more in the shadows.

There is no evidence that Jesus's victimization is linked to this Nameless Order in any way, it was worth noting that if we have questions about the worship of Santa Muere, we could always go try to ask some of the Order's membership about it in San Diego.

RESOLUTION:
Some basic Post-Life Regression allowed Chimera to witness the tribulations of Jesus in his time of captivity with the death cult.  He was used as a vessel for a powerful ghost claiming to be an avatar of Saint Death.  The process of witnessing human sacrifices, torture and captivity and repetitive possession wore his psyche down to virtually nothing.  Agency was stolen from Mr. Alvarado.

After investigating, Chimera also discovered that a strange entity was using Jesus as a sensory organ, possessing him because his past trauma made him a catatonic and very susceptible to possession.  She traced the mental link to a bizarre spirit-like entity that lives in the Shadow realm deep beneath the correctional facility and hospital groups.

It turned out that the entity was a Lare, a lesser Angel analog serving the God-Machine.  It turns out that it manages an Infrastructure that collects emotional resonance in an occult matrix and provides the output to other projects.  The Infrastructure and Lare have been in place for hundreds of years, worshipped as spiritual mounds to the natives of the day.  The Lare promotes heightened emotional states in all forms (good and bad) and seems to be responsible for the majority of spiritual resonance issues at this location.  It had ephemeral sensory organs (mostly eyes) within the walls of the shadow reflections and/or in the Twilight state.  It also looked for any opportunity to utilize staff and patients to sense and effect the emotional states of people on the grounds.  The poisoning of the location, wound and general status of Jamestown itself was very much influenced by this system.

With some very careful and clever planning, and leveraging the help of her mechanical servants and Reaper's knowledge and study of God-Machine technology, they managed to hack into the intelligence coding of the Lare and reprogrammed it with the directive to only promote positive and restorative emotional states.  They also managed to bestow some rudimentary empathy so that it could determine who and how to use its power on.  To support the drop of resonance input into the supported Logistical Infrastructure, she utilized the spirits of healing that had (thanks to her efforts) already had a beach head presence in the Shadow to act as supporting spirits for the Lare.  Her spirits will provide an extra check to insure the Lare doesn't make too many mistakes and act as sensors and supports for the Lare itself.

Over the following months the resonance of the grounds has drastically improved and the effects are carrying over into the Shadow as well.

Back to Jesus Emilio Alvarado, Chimera used her magical abilities to draw upon the mind of his past self (before the trauma) to restore the damage to his mind and psyche.  Since this spell was put in place Jesus has gained consciousness and is on a fast road to recovery.  While it will be difficult to pick up the threads of his previous life, he is at least given a chance...