  We study the interplay between extrema of axion potentials, Kahler moduli
stabilization and the swampland criteria. We argue that moving away from the
minima of non-perturbatively generated axion potentials can lead to a runaway
behavior of moduli that govern the couplings in the effective field theory. The
proper inclusion of these degrees of freedom resolves the conflict between
periodic axion potentials and the gradient de Sitter criterion, without the
need to invoke the refined de Sitter criterion. We investigate the possibility
of including this runaway direction as a model of quintessence that satisfies
the swampland criteria. Using a single non-perturbative effect, the axionic
maximum provides a runaway direction that is unstable in the axion directions,
sensitive to initial conditions and too steep to allow for a Hubble time of
expansion without violating the field excursion criterion. Adding a second
non-perturbative effect generates a saddle point in the potential, which solves
the steepness problem and improves the initial conditions problem although some
fine-tuning remains required.
