[@Gate Keeper] yeah that was my intention of the seige; to give reason for characters to interact and for the plot to move 

nope black magic does extend the time or everyone would be doing it. As for psionics, since Kelvin is a phantom he can  use poltergeist activity to a certain extent but that would use up quite a bit of energy and would reduce his time by about 10-20 minutes after each he uses it. Also the only people that can touch a phantom are people who are or have been close to death but didn't/ haven't died yet