I've decided that in order to cement myself as a capable and educated leader amongst my people, and to let the other attendees of the meeting in one week know that I'm more than just some half-bit throne-filler, I will regale and impress them all with my feats of magical splendor. By which I mean I'm going to teleport in there and show them just how great I am. Testing will commence this afternoon. Rain's out collecting rocks for me to perform the tests as I write. Against my better wishes I might add. Ponies are still dying, and despite the best efforts of the guard, those damned alchemists have yet to be found. I swear, when I get my hooves on them... I'll question them thoroughly because I don't know whether or not to blame this on them yet .
Addendum: Well they found one of the alchemists. Dead. Still in the tower. And apparently killed by the disease he created. I believe it was Ebo, the older of the two. They found a journal by his undecaying corpse with explicit details regarding... well, I believe it would be best if I just make that into a separate entry. I'll just cut and paste the page into my journal.