That was a serious challenge. I'm glad it forced me to learn a few things about the game and about the goatperson.
I'm very glad that I prepped GG, but it sounds like he might have been on the map anyway. The early game was tight, especially with that JJ across the map at level 2, but I was really lucky to start with GG at level 1. A strategy of note, that I discovered and abused the whole game: when you level up or otherwise get cursed in a subdungeon, you don't enter the curse realm. That means that when you have the zoo (which was a godsend) high-level curse bearers can be killed by going to the zoo and letting burn stacks finish them off. You'll get cursed for killing and leveling up, but you can keep romping around in the real realm.
I ended up collecting 19 max mana by the end, so I decided to entirely skip the shade and just pisorf spam the dragon to death. At level 7, I was GG, so I explored everything, converted all my food, and leveled up. Got lucky and was able to get three dodge potions from TT, but a second mana boon from JJ would have worked just fine, too. Glad I didn't fight the shade, cause I finished with tons of conversions and potions to spare.