Out of the Abyss - The Beginning

Diving headlong into playing D&D online

I would wager that most of our lives changed fairly rapidly in March, 2020. I went to pick Benjamin up from school for Spring Break and he never went to that school again. There's probably an old coat or two of his in a locker somewhere.
Gear Gaming was a big part of my social life. During the election year that put Trump in the White House, I had forever given up my Facebook account. But then I had to make a fake account. I made it under the name of my first D&D character just so that I could see what games were being played and when at Gear Gaming. They were AL games and so a little different from the regular home game I was used to.
The best part of going to sessions at Gear Gaming is that I met a lot of people. Looking back on it now, I realize I was quite fortunate. Admittedly awkward in social situations, it's practically a miracle that I ever signed up and went to games there with complete strangers. I did it because of my love of D&D. One of the DMs had just started a long campaign (Tyranny of Dragons). We had had our 0 and 1 sessions and I was really looking forward to it.
Then Covid hit and everything changed. Most of us were told to stay home. In the beginning, we didn't know for how long. It didn't seem possible that we could actually be in isolation for any lengthy period of time. It was difficult not to feel a sense of cabin fever.
But then, some of the people I met at Gear Gaming decided to take their games online so we could continue to play. When I first met Charles, I was impressed by his fancy dice tower. He seemed like someone who knew a lot about the game and that was all I knew.
I can't even remember how I was lucky enough to get invited to the game that he was brave enough to DM online. We were all spoiled by living in a city where there were multiple venues where one could find groups to play D&D with. Charles was going to run a campaign called "Out of the Abyss."I knew absolutely nothing about the campaign but I was eager to play.
On March 19, 2020, Charles posted the following:

So far, I haven't heard from anyone what they are going to play. We are starting at L1; standard AL restrictions (standard array or point buy for rolls; PHB +1 for races, abilities, and spells; and you would take starting equipment, except you won't have any - you're stripped to your skivvies and chained to a wall. If you end up with a wizard, go ahead and create your spell book, you will have a chance to "rescue" it.

That was my introduction to Out of the Abyss, or OOtA.
I downloaded the entire Roll20 chat log for OOtA when it ended. The log shows that from March 19th to March 24th, many of us got on Roll20 and tried to figure out how to connect our DDB accounts, etc. There was a lot of talk about sound, push to talk, muting, noise suppression, how to make your sheet in Roll20 (we didn't need to because we were using DND Beyond for our character sheets), and so on.
The game started with Anthony (Huldir, gloomstalker dwarf), Jody (Thorand dwarf cleric), Walt (Jarzak, gnome wizard), Nestor (Menerin Druid dwarf), Chad (Grom?), and me (Jinx, Swashbuckler Rogue Elf). The next time we played, we added Jason (Gael, human ranger).
It's amusing to note that Thorand, in that very first session, when we escaped our chains (with the aid of a sympathetic guard who gave us an old worn out thieves' tool kit that I used to break us all free), was concerned enough about the NPC dwarf, Eldreth, that he proposed that he would go back for her and he did. It became a running joke throughout the entire campaign. But it was also sweet.
On April 1st, the second session, we still had a few sound problems, disconnect issues, etc., but we were starting to get a feel for it. We had escaped our chains and were trying to escape Lolth type webs when we were thrown into combat after failing a group stealth check.
The following conversation seems to have set the tone for the entire adventure.

Gael continues to look, then shouts; "We're in combat, light it up!"
Menrin Loderr is ready to combat
Thorand Shouts: "Light what up? I can't see anything."
Gael says "Didn't someone say they have the Light spell?"
Charles (GM): rolling d20
19 = 19
Thorand Says: "Sure, let me cast it on you so you can be a target."
Gael:em says "You don't think a thrown object would be wiser?"
Walt M.:It sounds like we should probably just move.
Jinx :You don't think we should just start firing blindly? :)

April 22 was a pivotal session. By then, we had traded with some fish people, recovered 4 Hook Hoor eggs, and now we were exploring a cavern where we ran into fezzwriss (spelling?) for the first time. Our spellcasters didn't know their magic would be affected. In battle, Jarzak cast a spell that ended up killing Eldreth and Thorand never ever forgot it. Menerin cast something and the spell produced a unicorn in the underdark.
And that's the night we found Dawnbringer. Dawnbringer is a sentient sword that was perfect for Jinx, not so great for Huldir who was a gloomstalker though. It would cause a lot of shenanigans.
Reading back through the chat log, I realize how much I missed. Often, I was looking between my character sheet and the map to decide what to do. I didn't even notice how funny Jody was at first. If I had been reading the chat in Roll20, I would have noticed much sooner.
Out of the Abyss turned out to be my favorite D&D campaign so far. All of the games I've played in have been fun. I don't know if our group was special because we came together to traverse the Underdark online for the first time (because of Corona -2020) or whether our group just meshed well together or what but I have so many fond memories of the game.
The finale was a lot of fun. I miss the game, the group, and our comraderie. We lived through a lot together. One of us got Covid. One of us had an emotional crisis, one of us had to move out of state, and the list goes on. We supported each other outside of the game and inside the game, we made the best of it.