Emergency Protection?

[Karsk]

I don't really get what this and similar items actually do.

[Krazy Wallet]

Gemini's Emergency Protection? One of the game's mechanics is, when you die, you have a bank of Ergo at your death location. As you make your way back, you can see how much Ergo is there to recover in orange numbers in the top right. If an enemy hits you on this return journey, that number decreases. If you kill the enemy that hit you, whatever they "stole" will return to your death location. If, however, you fail to kill that enemy, the stolen Ergo is gone.

Using Gemini's Emergency Protection, it reduces the amount of stolen Ergo when you are hit by an enemy on that return trip. This is useful if you need to get past any mini-bosses or particularly heavy enemies as killing them can be stressful when a bloodstain is involved. There's a similar item that prevents loss of Ergo from dying as well.

[Lorn Au Arcos-2070]

Later in game, You wont get it all back from enemies. So say you drop 25K and some enemy wacks you around to 15K, even after you kill it to regain the lost ergo, you will only regain say for example 21K. So you can rapidly lose ergo later in game.