I have arrived in Ponyville with relatively little trouble. Royal Guards are out in force today, and despite my best attempts to keep my identity hidden I fear I am being monitored as I write this. I am being more cautious with my time, now.
My new "wand" is almost complete, and is at the point where, to the informed observer, it can measure the amount of magic in the air. The moment I activated it, however, the thing went haywire and started levitating.
There is strong magic here.
The claim about Cloudsdale seems to be incorrect. My findings actually point me to the center of Ponyville, near the market district.
The passage from Star Swirl the Bearded's notes frightens me. According to the poem's end, the author did himself in after finishing. There is no known knowledge of Star Swirl having suicidal tendencies. It doesn't make any sense. I see absolutely no evidence that he was so deranged. Is this research really that debilitating?
Or is there some piece to the puzzle I'm missing. A cover-up? Something lost to time?
I wish I had Clover's notebook. She is the only one who was with him in his final moments. I thought about grabbing it, but it wasn't pertinent to my research, so I ignored it. I'm regretting that now. I may never know what happened to him, and as a result, where his research took him.
I think he knew more than he wrote. But he was too overwhelmed. I suspect it was a mixture of age and bizarre findings. The more I look into this, the more I see how it could be distressing, even to an intellectual giant such as Swirl. These findings are certainly offputting.
I suspect Celestia knows all the answers. Why she won't tell me is a mystery. There is something here, in this city, that hints at something fundamental and deep. She can't have been ignorant to it for so long. She has to know something.
If she knows, why did she halt my research? This doesn't make an ounce of sense. She is generally very receptive to study, especially in the experiential. But to completely shut off my research like that... It's nothing short of barbaric.
I am off to compile a complete set of readings. I will record my findings here later.