Carmuna Pessoa

Carmuna Pessoa runs the Ancient Clothing Vendor stall in the Bootleg Bazaar. Used clothes, opinions about everybody, and one of PSEUDOPOD’s last working interactions on the day before he went catatonic.

That sock purchase order you find in the safehouse — the one signed off as Carmuna ordering ten pairs from PSEUDOPOD’s sock-importer cover identity — is the breadcrumb that gets Hershel into Carmuna’s stall. From there, the conversation tends to outrun the transaction.

What she sells

Used and bootleg clothing, the bulk of which is high-utility costuming for a spy who needs to look like somebody else.

The Sensors-gated Faux Fur Coat is the giveaway that her stall isn’t just a thrift counter. There’s something about the coat that an operant with low Sensors will miss — could be a hidden defect, could be a hidden feature, could be that she’s only willing to sell it to a buyer who clocks what it actually is. The check exists for a reason.

Why she matters to the main investigation

Carmuna is one of the few people in Quisach who interacted with PSEUDOPOD as a working asset rather than as a coma patient. Specifically:

• She placed a sock purchase order with him for ten pairs.
• That order is what makes PSEUDOPOD’s cover identity stick in the official paperwork — it’s a real transaction, with a real receipt, attached to a real Bazaar vendor.
• She therefore witnessed his last lucid hours.

For the Assign the Unassigned Assignment task, talking to Carmuna is one of the highest-information moves. She can confirm what time PSEUDOPOD was in the Bazaar, who he spoke to, what kind of mood he was in, and possibly what — beyond socks — he was actually buying or asking around about.

Why she also matters in her own right

Carmuna is not a fan of Tempo del Sur, the late Bazaar boss. The wiki’s exact phrasing: Tempo’s reign brought in an influx of Luzian customers and agitated the local Portofiran gangs, “much to the disdain of Carmuna Pessoa.” She’s also the person who triggers Check Out the Aerial Creep, where she sends Hershel to investigate the strange man on the aero-tram pylon (who turns out to be the harmless Phantom Line Engineer).

Both of those tell you who she is:

• She watches the Bazaar carefully and notices when something is off.
• She has strong, articulated opinions about who should and shouldn’t be running the place.
• She’ll send a stranger to do reconnaissance for her if it spares her own time.

That’s a useful person to have on side. It’s also a person with a stake in the question of who fills Tempo’s empty throne.

How to talk to her

Skills that work:

• Personalism for actually getting past the small talk.
• Cold Read for clocking when she’s testing you (she will be).
• Sensors for the Faux Fur Coat unlock — but also more broadly, since she trades in objects where the value isn’t obvious on the rack.
• Records if you want to validate her account of PSEUDOPOD’s last visit against the sock paperwork.

Don’t push her with Coordination or Instincts-style pressure. She’s a vendor in a bazaar with thirty witnesses. The conversation is the play.

What’s confirmed vs. unknown

Confirmed: Carmuna Pessoa runs the Ancient Clothing Vendor stall, sells the inventory above, ordered ten pairs of socks from PSEUDOPOD the day before his incapacitation, dislikes Tempo’s rule of the Bazaar, triggers the Aerial Creep task.

Unknown to the player at start: how much she actually knows about who killed Tempo, whether her dislike of Tempo extends to active involvement with whoever moved against him, what specifically the Sensors check on the Faux Fur Coat is reading, and how far back her memory of Hershel goes — she works the Bazaar where the Whole Sick Crew used to operate, which doesn’t have to mean she remembers CASCADE, but doesn’t have to mean she doesn’t.