Daedalus

"The view changes from day to day, It’s always some place high up. Yesterday it was from a skyscraper overlooking Manhattan. The day before that, there was a beautiful view of Lake Michigan. But it keeps coming back to the Garden of the Gods. I think the Labyrinth likes it here. A fitting name, I suppose."

- Quintus

Daedalus (Δαιδαλος in Ancient Greek, also known as Quintus) was a son of Athena, the inventor of the Labyrinth, and was a genius of his time. He is also the oldest known demigod, and the only adult one that wasn't made immortal by the gods. Daedalus was an omnibus, able to succeed at nearly anything he turned his hand toward. A brilliant inventor, terrific swordsman, artist and architect together, and he said he played a good game of basketball for someone who was two thousand years old when he first learned. Daedalus was very good and secure with who he was. He was the inventor of the Labyrinth. Daedalus was very intelligent and clever.

History
After making his nephew Perdix lose his balance and fall off the roof of his house and losing his beloved son Icarus, he fled into the Labyrinth. After killing his nephew, he was branded with the mark of a partridge (which Perdix had been turned into) by Athena, as a reminder to him that he was a murderer. While in the Labyrinth, he used a technique (suggested by Perdix) that allowed him to avoid dying by transferring his consciousness into a new body five times throughout history. The consciousness is referred as the 'animus,' the soul and center of a human being. Daedalus, escaping from King Minos, went to a far away city. In order to find Daedalus, King Minos went to several cities, and gave them each a small shell and a string. He said that if they couldn't thread the string through the shell, he would wage war on them, but if they could, he would greatly reward them.

The Battle of the LabyrinthAthena.jpg
In, The Battle of the Labyrinth, Daedalus is disguised as Quintus, the swordsman trainer at Camp Half-Blood. He has a huge hellhound as a pet named Mrs. O'Leary and is (at the beginning of the book) believed to be an adult half-blood, whose parentage is unconfirmed (Though he was partially telling the truth, as his mother was Athena). Percy and Annabeth figure out that Quintus is really Daedalus in his fifth body (Quintus means the fifth in Latin).

After much soul-searching, he asks to be killed by Nico. Nico does this by releasing his spirit in order to destroy the Labyrinth and halt Luke's invasion of Camp Half-Blood through Zeus' Fist. When Daedalus dies, the Labyrinth is destroyed because it is tied to his life force. It is said that he is now creating roads and overpasses in the Fields of Asphodel in the Underworld to help ease the traffic congestion and is allowed to visit his son Icarus and his nephew Perdix on weekends. Daedalus gave Annabeth his laptop filled with his inventions. She uses this laptop in The Last Olympian.