Happy Winter Veil and New Year.

My Iron Man Challenger - now all of level 12 - wishes every one a
HAPPY WINTER VEIL
and a
PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR.

Guard Parker Exonerated

There's not very much IronMan Challenge in this, apart from the fact that many of my Irons have done this quest and received Guard Parker's yardstick for their trouble. When you could freely choose your reward this was the one selling for most money.

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    For many years I was angry at Guard Parker. I even made a Hordie whose only purpose in life - after getting and selling me the recipe for Dig Rat Stew - was to kill Guard Parker as often as possible. And when in Cataclysm he (Guard Parker that is, not my Tauren) was promoted  to Guard Captain Parker, and did not even turn around to greet you when talking to him - see picture number 9 below, I hated him even more. That he had become un-killable by the Horde just made it worse. Now there was no way to get my revenge.

Now, here's the whole story, starting long ago in Lakeshire, Redridge Mountains (Vanilla WoW):

Picture number 1. Darcy, the waitress in the Lakeshire inn asks me to give the big, strong guard his lunch.

Picture number 2. Guard Parker tells me how tough things are in Three Corners. The rest of Azeroth might have their problems, but the Gnolls, you know. The Gnolls of Redridge poses a much larger threath.

Picture number 3. He gets his lunch, and thanks me, going on about his Gnolls.

Picture number 4. This is the part, I suspect I have been reading too quickly thorugh in my eagernes to get on with the Gnoll-killing. He asks me to buy flowers for Darcy, really, he has a tender spot after all.
  But when you leave here to go back to town, you're attacked by two or three monstrous spiders. One of them can be seen in the background in picture 3. And Guard Parker? He does nothing!
  Man, I just braved monsters and so on to give you your lunch, and then you just stand there watching for Gnolls while I get eaten alive by ginormous spiders. What a lousy guard you are, Guard Parker. And this is why I killled him, over and over again, wiht my Tauren. To revenge all the Alliance toon he did nothing to help.

Picture number 5. At the Herbalist, ordering some flowers. Not a usual task for a young fighter.

Picture number 6. Not being in the know about flowers, I let her choose.

Picture number 7. It seems Darcy and Martie, the Herbalist are not the best of friends.. Luckliy Darcy decides not to blame me or Guard Parker for Martie's ways.  I get my "free" lunch.
And apart from a hatred for Guard Parker this is how the story ended in Vanilla WoW.

Picture number 8. After Cataclysm when you arrive at Redridge Mountains, you are greeted by barricades and guards. Once let in, a tower keeps watch over the border. Inside Darcy resides - now she's Darcy Parker and has a daughter. She's still providing lunch. Not free any more, you need to gather ingredients for her huge cooing pot, seen behind her.

Picture number 9. If you go to the top of the tower, you'll find Guard Parker there. On top of now being married and a father, he's also been promoted to Watch Captain Parker. But he's still obsessed with Gnolls. He can't even turn away from watching them through his spy glass long enough to look at you.
  Westfall, where the Defias ran rampant and burned a whole city, where you're attacked if you put your nose outside the inn, and where homeless people are starving ... well it's noting compared to the Gnolls of Lakeshire.

Picture number 10. He asks you to find the Gnolls' Battle Plans, Orders, and Strategy Guide which are quite telling as to Gnolls' pathetic strategic and other warlike abilities.
  When you hand in the papers, Watch Captain Parker answers: "I knew it! Looks like Yowler is behind this uprising - which is incredible, because we keep killing Gnolls named Yowler. I don't know how many sons the original Yowler had, but it's got to be close to a hundred. Well, looks like we got ourselves another Yowler to kill. Magistrate Solomon must be notified."
  This is both fun - monsters re-spawn in WoW. All monsters, also the named, once in a lifetime-ones - and shows us his obsession with Gnolls.

He must be excused. He is a man with a mission, he is clearly a bit mad in thinking Gnolls and specifically Yowler, are the true enemies of mankind. He's not a bandit, only a monomaniac.
  I hereby apologize for my long time persecution of Guard Parker.

I go for Classic

I just had a taste of Shadowlands after the level and-so-on squish. And I think that Retail has turned into a parody of itself.
I made myself a NE hunter. What a sh** show! You're insta-ported back from any danger, you get a buff so that you can just walk off Aldrassil -  the tall tree in the starting area - etc, etc, etc... 1-5 (the former level 10) took me all of 15 minutes reading all quest descriptions. I'm outraged!  Normally I used 2 hours to do this.
Leaderboard or no leaderboard, I go for Classic!

All of level 7 here. Now she's level 11