Drow Pulls Ash Through the Walls

Ash remained isolated with Drow after the eye displaced him, and isolation kept becoming education.

Drow explained that Timonos Truthstriker was not only dangerous. He was cursed. Each time he died, he would respawn, and each death would extend his imprisonment. Killing him might solve the next six seconds, but it would make the larger problem worse. That turned Timonos from a monster to defeat into a punishment that could be accidentally deepened.

Then the maze made the lesson immediate.

A spectator crashed nearby. Later, Timonos himself came close enough to turn theory back into terror. Drow used phasing powers to pull Ash through walls and save him from immediate danger, proving she was not just another trapped prisoner with useful information. She could move through the maze differently.

That changed Ash's survival math.

Drow became a genuine ally in the remote sector: wounded, wary, connected to old identity wounds, but capable of getting him through walls when the normal routes stopped being survivable.

The maze had separated Ash from the party.

Drow kept that separation from becoming a death sentence.