In the city we make acquantances and brace ourselves.
When the trade is about complete Cazna moves silently up to whoever appears to be the lead gnome trader, "So you enjoy the fruits this trade, yes?"
She pauses. "It would be such a shame if all such trade were to be stopped; stomped on hard, wouldn't it?"
Again she pauses, this time waiting for some sort of affirmative.
"This isn't a shakesdown. We enjoy such occasional trade too and wouldn't want it to cease. So in this, all of you, and we are aligned, yes." Casna makes this sound like a simple statement of self-evident truth rather than a question and so continues, "Well, you may have heard, one of our .." gesturing to indicate a drow, "..sisters was apprehnded wandering erroneously on your land and was publically penalised, head shaved and so forth. Well, politics and politicians being what they are, that could sooo easily escalate to stamp out our little trading arrangements."
She pauses again, longer this time to let it sink in and for the gnome's greed to take a hold. "Well, I've managed to talk to some amongst our leaders and arrange for a series of warning signs to be errected on out side of the border. They will say somthing like, 'Border warning: do not venture beyond this point'. The signs will eventually run with full length of the border. They're to be set back by two to three hundred yards. This isn't a land grab. It's what I said: a serious attenpt to prevent escalation which would inevitably otherwise end all 'border trade'.." She glances round to indicate whe means their illegal trading. "..and very significant loss of life on both sides." She carefully avoids using the word 'war'.
"Now, I'm sure that enterprising folks like you can arrange for this to be brought to the attantion of the approriate people and arrange for them, politics and politicians being what they are, to bring forward their own idea to mirror our border warnings with those of your people. If such warning were offset from your border by, say, two to three hundred yards, then that would introduce a neutral zone. We might still meet in that, you know, provided we don't go beyond your signs and vice versa."
She lets the words hang in the air and waits patiently for some level of response.