That misread duration thing reminds me of an encounter with hydras where I moved away and gm said I provoked 4 attacks of opportunity (it's supposed to be 1 per trigger only). I got out of it okay since I had my defense planned, but that definitely made things tricky.
Life Connection, 3rd rank divine: as a reaction the caster takes all of the damage on the target. Share Life, 2nd Rank Divine: transfer half of all damage applied to the spell's target.
I have an idea what kind of monsters might be these undead priests ^^ I am running a certain AP near a small town called Otari and either I was not "good" enough to put my group into actual trouble or they were simply to good/lucky with those ^^