Chapter 116: Collecting and Building

Somewhere on the West Coast of Future North America

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After passing by the Redwoods, Erik and the girls continued to go down the coast with Helena's Revenge. The family would stop at each nice location that they found and spend the day enjoying the place. In some places, they had even made contact with the local population of supernaturals. They were in the great majority natural animagus and shamans. Selena managed to trade some knowledge about transfiguration and simple alarm wards for knowledge about animagus with them. Each tribe had its own ritual and customs about it, but they all had the same belief that the animal in which you could shapeshift is the same as your guardian. This knowledge about animagus together with the knowledge that they had gotten in Africa were enough for Selena to start her next project: becoming an animagus herself.

Their trips continued until the family hit the part of the continent that Erik was secretly interested in: future Central America. Here, Erik and the girls had to be very cautious. The gods of the pantheons that ruled these lands were very active and were not the sort in which they wanted to mingle with from what they had discovered in a quick survey of the place. They were the type that often asked for sacrifices. Human sacrifices. Taken that they were a very advanced civilization for the standards that they had seen until now in the north, the sacrifice of humans was a 'barbarian' thing to do.

But to each their drug and Erik and the girls decided to not make contact with them. It helped that their 'magic' was too primitive for Selena's taste. Erik just took what he had waited so long for to be done with: cacao, potatoes, tomatoes, and corn. Of course that already being the regions, Erik took the opportunity to make a little collection of all the native plants of the place that included between them papayas, chili peppers, beans, avocados, peanuts, and last but not less important, vanilla. These little hauls of his together with what he had already gotten in future North America's west coast would give Erik a lot to work with. He still had some crops that he would like to 'acquire' around here but that would have to wait.

The girls were marveled at what Erik could now do in the kitchen. Since they had been in this new continent, in which Erik insisted that it was not 'new' at all for Europeans since his ancestors had already visited it on its east coast, he had been coming up with new recipe after new recipe of delicious stuff. Their greenhouses' numbers back in Scotland had to be expanded to shelter all these new crops. Not that they would complain about it. The 'chocolate' that he had come up with from a fruit names cacao was something that no woman would ever deny. Yes, they would not complain at all.

The only thing that impressed the family in this area of the continent, aside from their crops, of course, was the existence of an entire city made of gold. The city was protected by a magic barrier cast by some of the gods that ruled the region, so Erik and the girls could not go inside. But it didn't stop Erik from putting a lot of stealth location spells around it. If they would one day all vanish, there was no reason to let all this gold be lost, right?

The trip of the family continued down the coast of the Pacific Ocean and they were now at the area that one day would become the west coast of South America. Here, they found a lot of advanced mountainous civilizations. After making contact with some of them and trading some knowledge and crops, they continued their trip down the coast until they reached the southernmost point of the continent. Lucky for them, Erik had timed their trip so that would be the peak of the summer when they arrived in the region. Even so, the nights were very cold and some rare giant blocks of ice could be seen lazily floating about.

The family continued to follow the continent's coast back to the north, making stops at each sight that they liked. The girls mooned after the penguins in the region. There was something about their clumsiness while on firm ground that made them smile. Penguins were not the only new animals that they had found around, just the ones that were worth mentioning due to the women's reactions. Though, the little monkeys that they found in the future south of Central America would be worth telling about if not for the fact that they would throw poop at anything that they didn't like that neared them. The discussion that Erik had with them after the first hand full of poop was thrown was hilarious for the girls. Apparently, a two meters high man talking about manners with a thirty centimeters high monkey was a very funny scene.

The family continued going north through what would be one day Brazil's coast. They made a lot of little stops at various beaches. The places were marvelous to the eyes and soul of anyone wanting to rest. They had not made contact with the humans living around here. They were too primitive for that. Collectors and hunters, basically, with a nomadic behavior. But that didn't stop Erik from getting his quota of crops and fruits from the region. Here he found something that made the girls moan in delight: passion fruit. Erik had made a mousse with it for dessert that got him a lot of rewards that night. Aside from passion fruit, Erik would say that his other great hauls would be the cassava roots and pineapples. The cassava roots could be made into a white flour that was delicious to eat with barbecued red meat. It could too be cooked into pieces that would turn very soft and delicious with only a pint of salt in the water. The pineapple was just like an apple in its uses. It could be eaten fresh, cooked, roasted, or be made into juice. Erik and the girls loved the juice version of it together with the roasted version. It was a delicious side dish to pork-like meats because of its acidic and sweet nature.

The family continued their trip to the north and soon were back to the region where they had 'found' the golden city. Since they had already explored that area, they focused on visiting some of the thousands of small islands that peppered the Sea in that region. Erik had taken the opportunity to get a nice island to himself. He knew that the region would be a hotspot in the future and having a private island here would be nice. And so was born the Ravens' Resort.

The island was a big one and in some aspects resembled Ogygia in size and shape with the addition that it had its own natural bay. The first thing that Erik did after claiming the island for the Ravenclaw family, was warding it to the seven heavens and back to hell. If this would be a place where his family and friends could relax and not be bothered by anyone, he would really make sure that they would not be bothered by anyone and anything. Erik had taken an entire month just with the warding scheme. He could not just copy the scheme that they had at Hogwarts because this place would not have a thousand magical children training their magic inside, so he had to come up with a new ward scheme. With some input from Selena, he had managed to create a 'perfect' self-sustaining ward to conceal and protect Ravens' Resort from almost anyone and anything.

His next step was the house. Erik wanted to build something majestic on the island. It would be made entirely of stone that he would quarry himself, with red tiles for the rook and every luxury that he could think of. It would be marvelous, it would be amazing, it would be… A monstrosity. And that last one was the opinion of his wives when he told them his plans. The trio of women had to knock some sense back to Erik's head. Building something so big on the island would spoil its atmosphere of it. At the end of the day, Erik relented and agreed with them. His mega-building project would have to wait until they were back in Europe. Erik had the 'perfect' place in mind for it.

Erik ended up building a series of small beach houses. In total there were seven of them. The bigger one, with the more resources inside, would be for the family, which meant Erik and his wives. The other six ones would be for visiting friends. The guests' houses had only the basic necessities available on them with three bedrooms each. They were all made of wood over a very solid base made of concrete that had some runes engraved to ensure that the building would not sink on the sand.

After having expended three months building and enjoying their new home, the family continued their trip north, following the east coast of future North America.

'Florida' was a strange place to visit. There was something on the air there that made it at the same time relaxing for anyone living there, and unstable for the weather. The swamps and land had a lot of scars left by the various storms that hit the place all year long. Continuing north, the family quickly sailed through the east coast of future North America. They soon were seeing giant blocks of ice floating lazily on the Ocean. With that, the family decided that was time to go home, even if their true home was wherever they were together.

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Ravenclaws' Land, South of Norway Kingdom

Autumn, 1250

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The family was back in Europe. Their big trip all around the world had been lots of fun for all of them, but now they needed to take a vacation from all the traveling, meaning, they were back to work in their own things.

Selena was back to her magical research. Lately, she had found a way to integrate various runic languages into one unic matrix that could be programmed to do repetitive tasks. Unknowing to her, Selena had just created the magic version of a programmable 'robot'. Erik could already see it. Add some 'arms' so they can interact with physical things, put them into an assembling line, and you would have the start of a magical industrial revolution.

Serafall was hard at her work as the 'Foreign Affairs Minister' of the Underworld. Lately, a lot of good-for-nothing young masters from the Noble families had been 'poaching' people from the territory of other pantheons and forcibly turning them into Devils through the use of the Devil Pieces. That had been giving her some headaches to take care of. In some cases, Erik had to subtle help her by giving the offending parts some well-deserved punishment.

Calypso had found something that she liked to do too. And liked it a lot. She had asked Erik to be allowed to take care of some of the greenhouses at home. And with his 'go ahead, have fun', Calypso now commanded a small group of gardeners house-elves. She was learning very fast how to take care of each plant inside and Erik could see her opening her own business in the future. At least he would suggest it to her.

Erik had been for the good part of a month quarrying and transporting big blocks of stone to the land that they were gifted by the Duke and Duchess in the south of Norway Kingdom. The stones were already forming an enormous pile that would seriously have caught people's attention if not for the protections that Erik had put around the place. While looking at the enormous pile of stones in front of him, a maniac grim appeared on Erik's face after a content one by having finished moving the stones. It was time for him to go all-out building again.

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