Keep Your Friends Close, They're What Drive You
The Hollow Shades are a low-lying region of northeastern Equestria where water and black mana both pool, forming a physical and spiritual morass that encourages all manner of things most ponies find unsavory. (That being said, the cuisine is actually quite nice, provided one doesn't try to identify the ingredients.)
The swamp's sole settlement is also called Hollow Shades, though not because anypony ever actually named it that. The settlers were earth ponies, able to sense how best to to adapt the land to their needs and vice versa. Names have power, and those first Hollowfolk knew that giving their town a name would've given a region that already resented their intrusion a way to focus its malice into something tangible.
The rest of the adaptations led to a town where half of the buildings sit on stilts and quite a few others are built into cypress trees. Most streets can only be called such by using a very loose definition of the term; many are boardwalks that seem dangerously rickety no matter how much maintenance they get, while those in the relatively dry town center consist of a claustrophobic maze of back alleys with no front.
The end result is the only town in Equestria with a white market, a secret location where a carefully watched clientele can exchange bits for legally permitted goods and services. Most commerce in the Shades takes place in smoke-filled huts, mysterious shops that aren't there the next day, and the aforementioned alleys.
An equinoid shape stood in one now, its shapeless, hooded cloak obscuring all identifying marks.
A batrachian stallion rounded a corner and slithered forward, his mane slick to the point of dripping, his coat and eyes eerily pallid, his lips thick and blubbery. "You are Deep Delver?" he asked with a gurgling undertone.
The cloaked figure nodded.
The stallion pulled a paper bag from one of his saddlebags, the source of their leather best left vague. "It was not easy to acquire. Though many things are readily found in this place, your request was not one of them."
"You have no use for it." Deep Delver's voice came out gruff, but too high for a stallion. "I will pay you the agreed amount and nothing more."
The seller gave a deep, mucousy sigh. "Very well. But only because my final change draws near. Tickets to Hinnysmouth aren't cheap, you know."
The two made the exchange in the traditional Hollow Shades manner, each tossing payment or product to the other from a few paces away. Both then turned and went their separate ways, no thanks or farewells exchanged. This too was traditional.
The branch of the Manehattan Corridor railroad that went into the Hollow Shades was a great feat of Equestrian engineering and military prowess, both in draining the swamp to lay the tracks and in fending off that which didn't want the swamp drained. The train station itself was a testament to the sensibility of the locals, looking derelict almost from the moment it had been finished. Youths painted graffiti on it less to rebel and more out of a sense of grim obligation. Still, the trains ran, and Deep Delver was soon on her way out of the Shades.
As the oppressive gloom gave way to brighter surroundings, Delver shed both cloak and identity. She'd bought that name and the papers that said it was hers in the Shirish underworld. The identity that had made that purchase had itself been bought in a disreputable Appleoosan saloon, which in turn led to a surprisingly personable mare in Maneitoba, and back and back through months of preparation, thousands of miles, and even more bits. At last, it had seemed safe to perform the final stage of the plan, and so Carrot Top now held the illicit fruit of her labors.
She dared not look in the bag. She had never been able to escape the notice and judgement of one mare, herself. Looking in the bag would make it real, would make her depravity plain to see.
Soon, Carrot told herself. She'd spent the better part of a year working towards this. She could wait a little longer.
Carrot Top didn't have much to do in late spring, especially not with a fairly small patch of land. Still, her chores seemed to drag. She couldn't focus on them, not with the item waiting for her in her kitchen. Her withers prickled with every motion as her sins crawled along her back. She'd thought she was past regret, past remorse... but guilt was apparently a different story.
After a brief eternity, the sun set. Carrot retreated inside. She drew the shades on every window. Ponyville wasn't a town where ponies locked their doors—certainly not when a good portion of the townsfolk could kick through the things anyway—so Carrot set planks of sturdy oak against the front and rear entrances.
Finally, Carrot entered her kitchen and approached her refrigerator, where what she'd worked so hard to get lay in wait. She could feel her ancestors looking upon her with shame and disapproval. But banish it all the moon and back, she was her own mare and she'd make her own decisions.
She threw open the magical appliance. A vast starscape greeted her, glittering with all the beauty of the night. Stars and galaxies twinkled, nigh-indistinguishable from her perspective. Great clouds of dust and gas glowed like delicate veils on a Saddle Arabian concubine. The majesty of an entire universe unfolded before her.
Carrot snarled. "Ditzy!" She dashed to the back door, heaved the oaken plank aside, and stormed out, crying, "This is the third time this month!"
Carrot felt a little bad about dragging Ditzy away from her dinner table, especially after Dinky had insisted on tagging along. Still, Ditzy had agreed that Carrot was entitled to feel peeved at this point. The walk back to her house was silent, even Dinky picking up on the awkward mood.
They came in through the back, whereupon Carrot led mother and daughter to her fridge, threw the door open, and furiously pointed at the cosmos within.
Ditzy winced. "I could've sworn I had all the kinks worked out of the hyperspace bridge."
"That's what you said last time." Carrot sighed. "Can't you just walk to work like the rest of us?"
"You'd be surprised how often I need something big and awkward from my attic. Nopony wants me flying over Ponyville with magical devices from other worlds." Ditzy shook her head and gave a soft smile. "Least of all me."
Carrot gave a grudging nod. "You can fix it, right?"
Ditzy looked over the fridge, her smile growing more confident. "Definitely. And given how the phase nodes keep forming in there, I think I know how to keep it from happening again."
"You said that last time, too." Still, Carrot couldn't help but smile herself.
Ditzy cracked her neck. "Okay, time to get to work." Her eyes flashed blue, and a tangle of glowing strands appeared over the mouth of the accidental portal, dotted with brighter spots where the strings of magic crossed one another.
Ditzy and Dinky both spent several seconds studying the web of light. Dinky then lit her horn, and one of the spots near the top left corner glowed in her aura. "This one first, right, Mommy?"
After a few more moments, Ditzy nodded. "Well done, Muffin."
Dinky beamed even as the bright point faded and the entire web rearranged itself into a new shape.
Carrot left them to their work, moving to her living room. She knew she could trust them, and it was still in its bag besides.
Several minutes later, a nervous call of "Carrot?" came to her attention.
Carrot Top looked up from her magazine to see Ditzy with far too wide a smile on her face, unable to keep her wings still in her agitation. At her side, Dinky shuffled from hoof to hoof, keeping her gaze at the floor. "Well," said Ditzy, "I have good news and bad news. The good news is that we closed the portal with minimal side effects. The bad news..." She bit her lip.
"You emptied my fridge."
"We emptied your fridge."
"There was a parsnip in there, Ditzy!" Carrot gasped and clapped her hooves over her mouth, but the damage was already done.
Ditzy tilted her head. "... So?"
Carrot's mouth worked wordlessly for a few moments. "So? So!? Do you know what I went through to get that parsnip?"
"Bought it in the market?"
"What?" Carrot took a step back in her shock. "No! I couldn't do that!"
"Why not?" asked Dinky.
"I—" Carrot Top swallowed the shout. "I'm a Golden-Harvest, Dinky."
The foal wrinkled her brow in confusion and looked to her mother. "Carrot's family is very old, very respected, and very rich," said Ditzy.
"Richer than Mr. Rich?"
Carrot nodded. "If I wanted to, I could buy and sell Barnyard Bargains several times over."
"She doesn't want to," Ditzy said to Dinky's disappointment. The pegasus turned to Carrot. "Still, I thought you wanted to distance yourself from your family. You know, be your own mare, make your own name. I mean, you did make your own name. That's why I'm not calling you Zannoria."
"That doesn't mean I want to drag my family's reputation through the mud." Carrot stomped a hoof. "I can't be seen consorting with other root vegetables!"
Ditzy and Dinky looked at one another with matching looks of incomprehension. "Dinky," said Ditzy, "what I'm about to say is kind of tribally insensitive. Not something you ask just anypony, okay?"
Dinky tilted her head, looking more confused than ever. "Okay?"
Ditzy turned back to Carrot. "Is this an earth pony thing?"
After a few deep breaths, Carrot ground out, "It's more of an old earth pony clan thing. If ponies saw me buying parsnips, it would be like... like Applejack buying pears!"
Somehow, Ditzy still didn't seem to grasp the severity of the situation. She just shrugged her wings and said, "Well, if it's that big a deal, I could always buy them for you."
Carrot's jaw dropped. "You... You'd do that for me?"
Ditzy smiled even as she quirked an eyebrow. "Why wouldn't I? We're friends."
Carrot sniffled and grabbed her in a hug. "Address is a lucky stallion. Thank you, Ditzy."
"Uh, sure."
"Just don't let this happen again," Carrot said, tightening her hold.
"Yeah! Sure thing! Please let go now!"
Shameful Acquisition BB
Sorcery
As an additional cost to cast Shameful Acquisition, pay X life.
Search your library for a card with converted mana cost X or less, reveal it, and put it into your hand. Then shuffle your library.
Nopony but buyer and seller knew, but that was still too many for Carrot Top's conscience.
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And here I thought it was some forbidden, eldritch tome.
Good work.
As someone who primarily plays red-blue EDH, that card would be so amazing for me.
Broken as all get out, but amazing all the same.
That reminds me, I need to edit and submit my Writeoff entry.
That was amusing
sort of seems like you can get a story out of anything at all just by taking a character and adding Innsmouth 
Well, that's an interesting spin on an old gag. Also, Pegasi don't quiiiiiiite have the sort of family bonds that mandate what they can eat.
6966866
But B is the abbreviation for black mana, not blue mana. The effect is also extremely black.
I take this as a sign that you'll soon get back to My Little Praetors, FOME.
6966844
The Cthoninomicon (or Book of Earthen Names) is said to hold the secrets of all root vegetables and their horrific true masters. Most farmers try not to think about it too much, lest they draw its notice.
6966914
Funny how that works. Deep One hybrids are like lemon juice; they'll improve nearly anything you add them to.
6967022
It's not just the family structure. Kitchens as ground-bound ponies think of them were virtually incompatible with cloud houses until very recent developments in null-weight spells and cloud processing. Traditional pegasus cooking techniques begin with "eat it raw" and end with "zap it with lightning until it looks done." By the standards of her tribe, Rainbow Dash is a pretty good cook.
6967527
No promises.
So how come this chapter isn't listed as the last chapter?
6975032
Because the chapters are roughly in-universe-chronological in their order and this happened before the chapters it precedes.
Wow, with the release of The Perfect Pear, this is even funnier than it was originally!
Then again, it's sorta the only common fruit not represented in the Apple Family until that point? Other than Bananas, but they're tropical...
You'd think he'd hop over.
Anyhow, I laughed. It was a cute twist.