Our names are Nick H. DePinto and Garrett T. McGrath, and we are the co-founders of Farrago Studios LLC.

Our story begins one night on the frigid winter streets of Princeton, New Jersey. We walked along the sidewalk with our hands in our coats after a long day at work, bracing our shoulders against the cold and looking for a quiet respite from the weather and office paperwork. Our usual haven, a bar called Triumph, was undergoing construction, leaving us to wander downtown in search of a relaxing hearth and drink. The buildings were quiet as flurries of snow whisked across the pavement and nipped at our heels. Eventually, we made our way to the edge of town with no sign of a pub. Cold and disheartened, we decided to head back, thinking we might just settle for the Subway next to the bottle shop. But just as we turned around, a sudden and massive gust of wind caught us in the chest, and those playful flurries chilled us to our core. Garrett and I spun around, shielding our faces from the onslaught against a brick wall. After the wind finally settled down, we lifted our heads out from under our arms, only to find ourselves standing in front of a large wooden door. Neither of us could remember seeing the door before, but from it came the sound of song and the smell of good beer. Chalking our blindness up to the cold and counting our good fortune, we opened the door and stepped inside.

The room we entered was well lit and immaculately decorated. Red curtains draped the walls from the gold trimmed ceiling to the dark wood floors with burgundy arm chairs dotted the room in an elegant manner. An oaky smoke hung in the air and it gave the light from the chandeliers an even warmer glow. Along the back wall was a long bar with a a rather impressive collection of bottles. Without a word, we both headed over and pulled up chairs at the bar.

While the bar looked inviting from a distance, it looked almost majestic up close. Shelf after shelf of ornate bottles lined the soft glow of the wall. I recognized some of them, (There was a 16 year Glenfiddich and a Jack Daniels special reserve) but a lot of them seemed foreign or written in a language I didn't recognize. A bartender came over to us from behind to the bar and asked "What can I get you?"

He was wearing a classic white collared shirt and had a very warm way about him. I was still too busy staring at their selection to respond, but Garret asked what they had on draft. The bartender simply smiled and responded, "Everything." 

Garrett and I looked at each other, rolling our eyes slightly, "You have any IPAs?" I asked.

The bartender wrapped on the wood of the bar, still with that warm smile, and said "I think I can find something. Let me get you a round of one of my favorites to try. On the house."

"Sure," we both said together, never ones to turn down a free drink. The bartender hurried away and we turned our backs to the bar and looked out over room. The room was rather crowded with most of the seating filled with patrons in excited and bostrious conversation.  Most of the them seemed to be rather eccentrically dressed. A few feet away, three men we in a heated conversation. The one leading the conversation was dressed in what could only be described as wizard's robes and a cowboy hat. The man next to him was in what seemed to be a set of medieval armor with a very shiny sheriff's badge pinned to his front. Trends these days.

As the the bartender came back with two pints of ale, one of the other patrons saddled up along side us. He looked... Well... He was a pirate, with a big hat, swashbuckler's coat, and everything. He even had a sword. "Another bottle of rum, would ya kindly," he slurred. The bartender nodded smiled and ran off. The pirate then turned to us and said "So what's your story?"

"Excuse me?" I asked, not wanting to offend a drunk and armed pirate.

"What is your story?" he said again, "Everyone here has a story to tell. What's yours?"

"Uh, I don't think I have one" I sheepishly said, looking away and taking a drink. Damn, if that wasn't great beer.

"Nonsense. If ya ended up here, you have a story," he insisted, "I bet... I bet you saved a princess from a fire breathing dragon. No? Or did you save a planet from an alien invasion? Come on, let me buy you a drink and you can tell me all about it."

Luckly, Garrett stepped in to save me. "Perhaps you could tell us yours, and we can jump in after," he suggested.

"Now that's a grand idea. Come." He grabbed an entire bottle of rum the bartender had place on the bar and lead us over to a table with two other patrons. One was a short woman with a pegged leg wearing a very futuristic looking coat, with neon glowing lights along its brim. The other was a rather tall man wearing a sixteenth century admiral hat and as he reach out his hand to shake mine he had robot hands. I swear they were really metal robot hands.

Our pirate friend sat down and immediately launched into a story of space piracy in which he tracked down the largest treasure galleon know to man as it made its way to a backwater spaceport. Garrett and I were enthralled and the pirate embellished his exploits. Every now an then, the other two patrons would throw a gold coin on to the table and bet on the direction of the pirate's story. They would say, "I bet... you ran into trouble with the authorities at the spaceport" or "I bet... pirates captured you and held you for ransom."

As this went on, I was able to tear my attention away from the frankly incredulous story to look over the rest of the room. It seemed that everyone was participating in a similar storytelling practice. One patron would excitedly tell their companions a tale, and the others would bet these gold coins on the story's direction. As the pirate concluded his tale of space piracy, galactic rebellions, and buried treasure, Garrett and I were legitimately awe-struck in its grandiose wake. The others wrapped on the table and each threw a gold coin to the grinning pirate. They then looked at us expectantly. I remember wanting something to show my appreciation for such a story, and putting my hand in my pockets out of disappointment, knowing that I had nothing to show my appreciation. But as a placed my hand in my pocket, I felt something smooth and hard. I pulled it out and found it to be a gold coin. Looking at Garrett, he put his hands in his front pocket and pulled out a similar gold coin. We look at each other and then at the waiting pirate.

Simultaneously, we threw the coins to the pirate and he caught them in one hand. "Thank ya," he said with a wink, "and don't you worry. You'll earn these back and then some when it's your turn."