Lyra sensed the attack at the last moment, twisting away so that Nik's blade merely sliced through her cloak rather than her flesh. She didn't counterattack, some part of her still recognizing her confused companion despite the hallucinatory fog that surrounded them all.
The creature moved through the golden cloud with perfect ease, clearly unaffected by the spores that had incapacitated the humans.
It approached Thorin, who was struggling to rise from where he'd been thrown, his movements sluggish and disoriented from both the impact and the spores.
Apollo felt the weight of exhaustion dragging at him, the sleepless night combined with the hallucinogenic spores threatening to pull him under completely. The gold in his veins responded sluggishly to his desperate call, as fatigued as the rest of him.
'Focus,' he commanded himself, fighting against the spore-induced visions that danced at the edges of his perception. 'They need you. Focus!'
