Unable to continue main quest - Cannot talk to Apothecary

[orthoros]

I can't talk to the Apothecary during the main quest. This is most likely due to me having encountered him before. When I returned for the quest, I had to fight the big guy once more, but the Apothecary never leaves his "scared" animation. A quick search says this can be fixed by reloading a save before ever interacting with the NPC, but let's be honest, I'm not about to reload an 8 hour old save. 

Is anybody aware of another possible fix? Or do I have to wait for a bug fix to continue the main story?

Things I tried:

-Restarting the game.

-Reloading the area.

-Doing another quest.

-Resting at camp.

[Jameson Lee Johnston]

Same thing happened to me

[MostSaneWatcher]

Just happened to me as well. Killed Thalla (normally) hours ago, now I need to talk to the apothecary for the main quest and I can't.

When I approached the apothecary, Thalla spawned in, I killed him again, and he immediately despawned without the death animation. Reloaded, fought him again, killed him again, and he died normally and dropped loot this time, but I still cannot talk to the apothecary. Saved and then loaded the new save, and Thalla is gone, but I still cannot to talk to the apothecary.

This seems like an issue you can stumble into pretty easily, hopefully a patch isn't too far off.