use strict;
use warnings;

sub pointer_to_element {
  use List::Util 'reduce';
  reduce(sub { \($$a->{$b}) }, \shift, @_);
}

my @k = qw(a b c);
my $href = {};

${pointer_to_element $href, @k} = 5;

use Data::Dumper;
print Dumper($href);